Elizabeth Vanessa Harper (born 1982 or 1983), known professionally as Class Actress, is an American singer, songwriter, and record producer. Class Actress was originally conceived as a trio, consisting of Harper, Mark Richardson, and Scott Rosenthal.

History

Formation and early years

Harper majored in drama in college and moved to

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the wor ...

to pursue a career as an actress, but she was unable to make it work and soon found herself disillusioned by it. After relocating to

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Kings County is the most populous Administrative divisions of New York (state)#County, county in the State of New York, ...

, she decided to pursue a career in music instead. She formed Elizabeth Harper & the Matinee, and in 2004, Harper's self-titled debut solo album was released by UK label

Angular Recording Corporation Angular Recording Corporation was an independent record label founded in New Cross, South East London. It was established in June 2003 by two ex- Goldsmiths College students, Joe Daniel and Joe Margetts, who reclaimed a local Ordnance Survey T ...

. Harper later contacted

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

-based producer Mark Richardson, who had remixed a song from her debut album. She preferred Richardson's version to the original, and the two began recording songs at her house, trading Harper's previous guitar-based sound for

electronic music Electronic music is a Music genre, genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or electronics, circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromech ...

, which she had long been interested in exploring. Along with multi-instrumentalist and engineer Scott Rosenthal, Harper and Richardson formed Class Actress—the name being a joke on Harper's original career choice.

2009–2012: ''Journal of Ardency'' and ''Rapprocher''

Class Actress released their debut extended play, ''Journal of Ardency'', on February 9, 2010 on Terrible Records, which is run by

Grizzly Bear The grizzly bear (''Ursus arctos horribilis''), also known as the North American brown bear or simply grizzly, is a population or subspecies of the brown bear inhabiting North America. In addition to the mainland grizzly (''Ursus arctos hor ...

's Chris Taylor. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' described it as "an alluringly precise recapturing of the winning chill of early '80s electro-pop". The EP also drew comparisons to New Order,

The Human League The Human League are an English synth-pop band formed in Sheffield in 1977. Initially an experimental electronic outfit, the group signed to Virgin Records in 1979 and later attained widespread commercial success with their third album '' Dare ...

, and

Depeche Mode Depeche Mode are an English electronic music band formed in Basildon, Essex, in 1980. The band currently consists of Dave Gahan (lead vocals and co-songwriting) and Martin Gore (keyboards, guitar, co-lead vocals and main songwriting). Depech ...

, while Harper's vocals were likened to those of Blondie's

Debbie Harry Deborah Ann Harry (born Angela Trimble; July 1, 1945) is an American singer, songwriter and actress, best known as the lead vocalist of the band Blondie. Four of her songs with the band reached on the US charts between 1979 and 1981. Born in ...

and Saint Etienne's

Sarah Cracknell Sarah Cracknell (born 12 April 1967) is an English singer-songwriter and lead singer of the electronic music band Saint Etienne. Career Cracknell's career started with the Windsor-based indie band The Worried Parachutes in 1982. Following the d ...

. The trio's debut studio album, ''

Rapprocher ''Rapprocher'' is the first studio album by Class Actress. It was released via Carpark Records on October 18, 2011. It is a follow-up to the 2010 EP, ''Journal of Ardency''. The title is French for "to come closer". Music videos were created for " ...

'', was released on October 18, 2011 by

Carpark Records Carpark Records is an independent record label based in Washington, D.C. History Carpark Records was established by Todd Hyman in 1999 in New York City. In 2005, the label relocated to Washington, D.C. Carpark has subsidiary labels. Acute Re ...

. Harper stated that the title—which means "to come closer" in

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

—was inspired by "a French lover who broke erheart". The album received generally positive reviews from music critics, obtaining a rating of 69 out of 100 based on 16 critics on review aggregate site

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the dat ...

named it one of the best

indie pop Indie pop (also typeset as indie-pop or indiepop) is a music genre and subculture that combines guitar pop with DIY ethic in opposition to the style and tone of mainstream pop music. It originated from British post-punk in the late 1970s and su ...

and rock albums of 2011. ''Rapprocher'' reached number 21 on ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertis ...

''s Dance/Electronic Albums chart and number 27 on the

Heatseekers Albums Top Heatseekers are "Breaking and Entering" music charts issued weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine. The Heatseekers Albums and the Heatseekers Songs charts were introduced by ''Billboard'' in 1991 with the purpose of highlighting the sales by new an ...

chart. The song "Keep You" was used in an episode of the fifth season of the teen drama television series ''

Gossip Girl ''Gossip Girl'' is an American teen drama television series based on the novel series of the same name written by Cecily von Ziegesar. The series, developed for television by Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, ran on The CW network for six ...

''.

2013–2015: ''Movies''

As a solo artist under the moniker Class Actress, Harper signed to

Casablanca Records Casablanca Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group and operated under Republic Records. Under its founder Neil Bogart, Casablanca was most successful during the disco era of the mid to late 1970s. The label currently ...

in 2013. That same year, she moved into a bungalow at The Beverly Hills Hotel in order to write and record songs. Class Actress premiered the track "More Than You" on May 20, 2015, and on June 2, it was announced that her EP ''Movies'' would be released on June 23 via Casablanca and

Republic Records Republic Records is a New York City–based American record label owned by Universal Music Group (UMG). It was founded by Avery Lipman and Monte Lipman as an independent label in 1995, and was acquired by UMG in 2000. Republic was initially an ...

. Taking inspiration from "the films of '80s excess, glamor and self-discovery", Harper wanted ''Movies'' to tell "a dark story of a woman who explores the glamorous fantasy life of a Hollywood party girl." The EP was executive-produced by

Giorgio Moroder Giovanni Giorgio Moroder (, ; born 26 April 1940) is an Italian composer, songwriter, and record producer. Dubbed the " Father of Disco", Moroder is credited with pioneering euro disco and electronic dance music. His work with synthesizers had ...

and

Evan Bogart Evan Bogart (born January 23, 1978), better known as E. Kidd Bogart, is an American songwriter, music publisher, record executive and film & television producer. He is the son of Casablanca Records founder Neil Bogart and former music manager Jo ...

, and features production by Harper herself, Moroder, Neon Indian, and Mess Kid.

2016–present: New music

On June 30, 2016, Class Actress premiered a song titled "Glass Ceiling", along with an accompanying music video, through Terrible Records. The track was produced by Mess Kid.

Discography

Studio albums

Extended plays

Music videos

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Actress, Class 1980s births American women singer-songwriters Record producers from New York (state) American synth-pop musicians Living people People from Brooklyn Republic Records artists Singers from Los Angeles Singers from New York City American women in electronic music 21st-century American women singers 21st-century American singers Record producers from California American women record producers Singer-songwriters from California Singer-songwriters from New York (state)