Photo courtesy of Eva Zheng

Before Mia Schuster had the entirety of her latest album, Happy (Again), planned out, she knew she wanted it to be yellow.

It was the only adjective she could think of to describe the album - yellow. It’s what she saw in her mind and she was determined to bring that idea to life. Her logic behind it was simple; yellow represents happiness, joy and life, and that’s what she wanted the album to represent.

“I wanted it to be a ray of sunshine, so yellow just seemed right,” she said.

The creation process was a mix of songs written over the years and new tracks seeming to fit right into her idea of yellow. It took roughly a year to get everything together, starting with the pride of finishing the first few songs to hitting a few bumps in the road and making it out on the other side.

Cohesion is a major part of any album, and Schuster found herself in a jumble of emotions trying to figure out how the songs were going to piece together. First she was proud of getting the project started, then stressed about the songs making sense as a unit. Then she was back to feeling excited about it coming together before second guessing the entire project.

“It wasn’t until the end of the process that I really started to have serious doubts,” she said. “Due to all the craziness that’s been happening in the world this year, I actually almost pushed the project back several times. Yet despite the rollercoaster of emotions this project was, everything managed to come together in the end! I am so proud of the finished project and I’m so happy with how everything turned out!”

It’s no surprise that working on this album taught her a lot about herself as an artist. She learned that her love for music is all she needs to make something that she is wholeheartedly proud of, and trying to please others or live up to their expectations only hinders the creation process. Most importantly, she learned that being true to herself and loving her music is the most freeing feeling.

In the month that Happy (Again) has been released, Mia Schuster has received overwhelmingly positive feedback from listeners and is happy to report that the concept of yellow has made its way through the songs to the visual portions of the album and beyond. Yellow represents joy, which she felt while creating it, and hopes listeners can feel and hear that throughout each track.

“I wanted this album to be a light in the darkness - a reminder that no matter how hard things get, it is going to be okay,” she said. “I hope that no matter where someone is at in life that they can listen to this album and walk away feeling a little lighter and a little stronger. Music has the power to heal, and my prayer is that people could find a bit of that solace here.”