Banks

BANKS, born Jillian Banks, shapes introspective alternative pop laced with contemporary R&B textures. The vocalist and composer surfaced in the first half of the 2010s through several languid, alternative-R&B-inflected recordings that quickly drew listeners across stylistic lines. Her debut full-length Goddess, issued in 2014 and anchored by the platinum-certified breakthrough single “Beggin for Thread,” reached number twelve on the Billboard 200 and later received gold status; two years afterward she returned with The Altar, which again lodged comfortably inside the upper half of the same chart. On her third and fourth albums, III and Serpentina, released respectively in 2019 and 2022, BANKS broadened her sonic range, then issued starkly aggressive yet emotionally raw early tracks in 2024 that signaled the arrival of her fifth project, Off with Her Head.

Jillian Rose Banks began composing songs while still a teenager in her hometown of Tarzana, California, prompted by a keyboard she received from a friend. For an extended period she treated music as a private outlet, yet in early 2013 she posted the polished, understated “Before I Ever Met You,” a track whose atmosphere recalled the work of Fiona Apple and Massive Attack. Within months the Los Angeles native placed material on Good Years in the United Kingdom and the reactivated Harvest label in the United States, among them the Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs-produced “Warm Water” and the song “Fall Over.” That September she issued the four-track EP London while supporting the Weeknd on a North American tour.

Her first studio album, Goddess, arrived the following September and entered the Billboard 200 at number twelve; it included contributions from producers Justin Parker and Shlohmo as well as further work from Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs. Harvest made an extensive set of remixes available digitally in 2015. In 2016 she delivered the eagerly awaited second album The Altar, whose singles included “Fuck with Myself,” “Gemini Feed,” and “Mind Games,” and which climbed to number seventeen on the Billboard 200; “Underdog” followed as a fourth single in 2017. Early the next year BANKS surfaced with the synth-driven “Gimme,” helmed by Hudson Mohawke, a track that appeared on her third album III, released that July. Additional guests encompassed Francis and the Lights on “Look What You’re Doing to Me” and Paul Epworth—known for work with Adele and Rihanna—on the ethereal “Hawaiian Mazes.” A concise live recording, Live and Stripped, surfaced in 2020.

BANKS initiated her subsequent album cycle with the 2021 releases “The Devil” and “Skinnydipped,” both of which found a home on her fourth LP, Serpentina, issued in 2022. Conceived around ideas of discarding past versions of oneself and welcoming change, the record took shape during her extended period of pandemic seclusion. Late in 2024 she unveiled the steely Doechii collaboration “I Hate Your Girlfriend” alongside the somber ballad “Best Friends,” the pair serving as initial offerings from the forthcoming Off with Her Head, slated for release early the next year.