Songwriter / composer Olivia Broadfield has done it again, capturing the hearts of a generation of women as her latest release ‘The Split: Barcelona’ EP tops the singer/songwriter charts, overtaking Myles Smith’s ‘A Minute…’, lead track ‘Quicksand’ joins Spotify’s New Music Friday Playlist and The Split Series 2 and 3 Soundtracks re-enter the Top 10. Broadfield’s positioning stands out in a chart primarily dominated by young men.
Olivia Broadfield is one of very few female songwriters writing authentically about life as an over 40-year-old woman. Writing for hit BBC Drama The Split has convinced her that her age has become her most valuable asset. The show has given her a unique opportunity to write for a demographic of society that is woefully underrepresented in modern music – women with life experience. Women whose lives haven’t necessarily gone to plan, who are picking up the pieces of broken marriages, or readjusting to an empty nest, and finding themselves again. A phase of life often referred to as The Second Spring, that is rarely found in mainstream music, but, via the medium of TV, has a huge audience, as Broadfield has discovered.
“Women reach out to me all the time,” Broadfield says, “thanking me for making them feel seen. The show seems to have bonded all these women over the age of maybe 45 who, using storylines from the show as a catalyst, share their own experiences and stories with each other over social media. There is a genuine sense of community amongst them that is really lovely to see.”
‘The Split: Barcelona’ has received rave reviews, and there’s a huge appetite for a fourth series amongst fans. Broadfield says, “Working on The Split gave me the opportunity to truly express myself as a woman in my 40s, to embrace my age and my life experiences, instead of bowing to societal pressure to remain eternally youthful. Though if Abi bows to that societal pressure and writes a 4th series and asks me back, I’d be there with actual bells on; writing music for a show you genuinely adore is just a total joy. Abi’s writing is genius, she’s just the best muse.”
Broadfield is a British composer known for her co-writes, film, TV and theatre work. Her songwriting, which has also featured in TV shows such as Grey’s Anatomy and The Vampire Diaries, recently reduced Sabrina Carpenter and Zane Lowe to tears over Billie Marten’s ‘Bird’, and her soundtrack to the third series of The Split outsold Adele, reaching #2 on the Apple and Amazon album charts. In 2024 Broadfield co-wrote with various artists, including rising British talent Asha Banks. The actress and musician, who recently starred in the hit BBC series ‘A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder’, plays the lead in upcoming Amazon film ‘My Fault:London’. Broadfield has co-written Banks’ next single, which will be released on 24th January.
TRACKLISTING
- Quicksand
- You For Years
- Holding On Forever
- Blank Page