Biography
Carol Ades crafts songs for prominent recording artists and theatrical productions while also performing her own material as a vocalist and composer. Her work weaves introspective themes of emotional fracture with expansive melodic lines. After placing as a finalist on season five of NBC’s The Voice in 2013, she experimented with electro-pop before establishing herself as a Los Angeles-based songwriter. Among her early co-writing credits were Zara Larsson’s soundtrack contribution “Invisible” and the Hot 100 entry “Past Life” by Trevor Daniel and Selena Gomez. In 2021 she issued her first EP as a singer-songwriter, the breakup-focused Through, which merged mainstream pop with indie-pop and indie-rock textures. A follow-up EP, Sadtown USA, arrived the next year, followed in 2024 by the standalone tracks “Hope Is a Scary Thing” and “Dreams.” Throughout this period she accumulated numerous additional songwriting placements, among them material for Demi Lovato, Kesha, Benny Blanco, and Ava Max.
Raised in New Jersey and now residing in Los Angeles, Caroline Ades Pennell reached the finale of The Voice’s fifth season, which secured her a Nettwerk recording contract. Under her birth name she issued several EDM-tinged pop singles during the mid-2010s before shifting focus to writing for other performers. By decade’s end her catalog included Zara Larsson’s “Invisible” from the Klaus soundtrack plus album cuts for Grace VanderWaal, X Lovers, and Astrid S.
After an especially difficult breakup, she began channeling her experiences into new songs, drawing inspiration from the television series Fleabag, female literary voices, independent film, and acts such as MUNA and Phoebe Bridgers. One result, “Past Life,” was ultimately recorded by Trevor Daniel and Selena Gomez and credited to a writing team that also comprised Pennell, Daniel, and Finneas O’Connell. The COVID-19 lockdown afforded extra time for creation, yielding her debut solo single, the self-mocking “I Can’t Wait to Be British,” released in June 2021 and featured that October on the Through EP. The same year saw the premiere of the stage musical WILD: A Musical Becoming, co-created by Tony-winning playwright V, Grammy-nominated songwriter Justin Tranter, and Pennell (credited as Caroline Pennell), with Idina Menzel starring as a single mother intent on rescuing the planet. Pennell also supplied substantial contributions to Demi Lovato’s 2021 album Dancing with the Devil…The Art of Starting Over and to releases by Ava Max and Benny Blanco.
Reverting to the name Carol Ades, she delivered her second EP, Sadtown USA, in late 2022. The following year brought the single “Free” along with writing credits on Kesha’s Gag Order and K.Flay’s Mono. In 2024 the tracks “Hope Is a Scary Thing” and the more overtly pop-oriented “Dreams” each amassed hundreds of thousands of streams.
Raised in New Jersey and now residing in Los Angeles, Caroline Ades Pennell reached the finale of The Voice’s fifth season, which secured her a Nettwerk recording contract. Under her birth name she issued several EDM-tinged pop singles during the mid-2010s before shifting focus to writing for other performers. By decade’s end her catalog included Zara Larsson’s “Invisible” from the Klaus soundtrack plus album cuts for Grace VanderWaal, X Lovers, and Astrid S.
After an especially difficult breakup, she began channeling her experiences into new songs, drawing inspiration from the television series Fleabag, female literary voices, independent film, and acts such as MUNA and Phoebe Bridgers. One result, “Past Life,” was ultimately recorded by Trevor Daniel and Selena Gomez and credited to a writing team that also comprised Pennell, Daniel, and Finneas O’Connell. The COVID-19 lockdown afforded extra time for creation, yielding her debut solo single, the self-mocking “I Can’t Wait to Be British,” released in June 2021 and featured that October on the Through EP. The same year saw the premiere of the stage musical WILD: A Musical Becoming, co-created by Tony-winning playwright V, Grammy-nominated songwriter Justin Tranter, and Pennell (credited as Caroline Pennell), with Idina Menzel starring as a single mother intent on rescuing the planet. Pennell also supplied substantial contributions to Demi Lovato’s 2021 album Dancing with the Devil…The Art of Starting Over and to releases by Ava Max and Benny Blanco.
Reverting to the name Carol Ades, she delivered her second EP, Sadtown USA, in late 2022. The following year brought the single “Free” along with writing credits on Kesha’s Gag Order and K.Flay’s Mono. In 2024 the tracks “Hope Is a Scary Thing” and the more overtly pop-oriented “Dreams” each amassed hundreds of thousands of streams.
Albums
Singles
