She’s booked for Coachella 2023, but only has 177K followers on Instagram. She still uses Tumblr, yet Vogue and The New York Times have written pieces on her. She was included in Barack Obama’s favorite music of 2022 playlist, yet none of my friends have heard of her. Who is she?
Ethel Cain shot to fame in the past year. Born Hayden Silas Anhedönia, but known professionally as Ethel Cain, she got her start in music back when she was eight. Cain was raised in an extremely religious household, and she was in her church’s choir and taking piano lessons as soon as she could. At 16, Cain left her church after coming out as gay four years prior.
It wasn’t until 2017 Cain began producing her own music. Truly a child of the digital age, Cain gained her first fans by posting her music on Twitter and Tumblr. In 2019, Cain released her first EP, Golden Age, followed in 2021 by her second EP Inbred. Cain’s popularity skyrocketed in 2022 when she released her debut album Preacher’s Daughter.
Cain’s music draws heavily from gospel, country rock, and indie genres. Preacher’s Daughter includes several totally different songs as it follows a distinct narrative storyline. Beginning with the opener “Family Tree” and ending with “Strangers”, the 75-minute album follows a complex story arc of a young woman who runs away from her religious southern hometown. On the road, she meets Isaiah, who she travels with to the American west. Things turn dark when Isaiah gets the main character addicted to drugs and becomes her pimp. The end of the album finds the main character dead in an abandoned building, before she is cannibalized by Isaiah.
Despite the dark themes of the album, Cain’s beautiful voice lulls the listener into understanding how a young woman could become caught in this situation. To add even more layers to Cain’s complex narrative, the story of Preacher’s Daughter is the second in an overarching story about three generations of women. Additionally to the women she describes in her music, Cain is referred to by her fan base as “Mother Cain”. Furthermore, Cain has stated that the persona of “Ethel Cain” is one that she is putting on solely for this story arc, and is a moniker she may abandon in the future.
Not only has Cain captured the ears of her fans, but she has also become somewhat of a style icon. Her fashion leans heavily on a mix of gothic, southern prairie, grunge, and Americana influences. Imagine if Laura Ingalls Wilder smoked cigarettes, listened to Nirvana, and owned a shotgun and a haunted doll. That’s her style in a nutshell. Like her music, Cain’s style also draws on darker elements like gore, blood, and cannibalism.
I wouldn’t blame you if you still didn’t understand who Ethel Cain is. The woman herself is an enigma that is hard to pin down, and covered in layers of mystery and lore. If you really want to understand what she’s all about, I suggest scrolling through her Tumblr as you listen to her music. Then you might start to understand her infinite genius.