''Ready to Live a Lie'' is the fifth studio album by Swedish synthpop duo

Sally Shapiro Sally Shapiro is the pseudonym of a Swedish vocalist and the name of the Italo disco/synthpop duo composed of Shapiro and musician Johan Agebjörn. On 28 April 2016, Sally Shapiro announced the end of their 10-year career alongside the release ...

. It was released on 30 May 2025, via

Italians Do It Better Italians Do It Better is an independent record label based in Portland and West Hollywood. It was started by Johnny Jewel and Mike Simonetti on July 20, 2006, to focus on Jewel's projects Glass Candy and Chromatics and later Desire, Symmetry an ...

Background

Released three years after the duo's ''Sad Cities'' in 2022, ''Ready to Live a Lie'' is their second release on Italians Do It Better. The album was mixed by the label's co-founder,

Johnny Jewel Johnny Jewel (born John David Padgett; May 31, 1974) is an American musician, record producer, composer, and visual artist. He is a multi-instrumentalist who is known for using all-analog equipment. Jewel has been recording and releasing material ...

, and Agebjörn of the duo. Described as "the duo's darkest album yet", it centers on the duo's vocalist, also known by the same name, and her struggle with personal issues involving relationship and loneliness. "The Other Days" was released as a single on 11 March 2025. It was followed by "Did You Call Tonight", the second single, on 1 May 2025.

Reception

''God Is in the TV Zine'' scored the album eight out of ten and called it "another Sally Shapiro release that is totally worthy of three quarters of an hour of anyone’s time." ''Paste'' remarked, "Compared to their previous albums, though, ''Ready to Live a Lie'' is more explicitly about how Sally—again: the character, not the vocalist—has been hurt and the lies she's endured, or told herself in order to soldier on," rating it 7.6 out of ten. ''

MusicOMH ''MusicOMH'' (stylized as ''musicOMH'') is a London-based online music magazine which publishes independent reviews, features and interviews from across all genres including classical, metal, rock and R&B. History ''MusicOMH'' was founded an ...

'' gave the album a rating of three and a half stars, stating "''Ready To Live a Lie'' may sound almost gossamer light at times, but there are enough moments on it to provide a melancholic soundtrack to the summer." ''Beats Per Minute'' assigned it a score of sixty-nine percent, referring to it as "a reluctant but delicate embrace of sadness and heartache."

Track listing

Personnel

Credits adapted from the album's

liner notes Liner notes (also sleeve notes or album notes) are the writings found on the sleeves of LP record albums and in booklets that come inserted into the compact disc jewel case or cassette j-cards. Origin Liner notes are descended from the prog ...

Sally Shapiro

* Sally Shapiro – vocals * Johan Agebjörn –

production Production may refer to: Economics and business * Production (economics) * Production, the act of manufacturing goods * Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services) * Production as a stat ...

, mixing, backing vocals on "Casablanca Nights"

Additional contributors

* Steve Moore – production on "Casablanca Nights", guitar on "Le Noir Et Le Blanc Sur Le Piano" * Mikael Ögren – co-production on "The Other Days" and "Did You Call Tonight" *

– mixing,

remix A remix, also sometimes called reorchestration or rework, is a piece of media which has been altered or contorted from its original state by adding, removing, or changing pieces of the item. A song, piece of artwork, book, poem, or photograph ca ...

ing on "Forget About You", additional drums on "Le Noir Et Le Blanc Sur Le Piano", front cover artwork, vinyl artwork * Roger Gunnarson –

falsetto Falsetto ( , ; Italian language, Italian diminutive of , "false") is the vocal register occupying the frequency range just above the modal voice register and overlapping with it by approximately one octave. It is produced by the vibration of the ...

vocals on "Did You Call Tonight" *

Mike Bozzi Mike Bozzi is an American mastering engineer at Bernie Grundman Mastering in Hollywood, California. He won a Grammy Award for Record of the Year for mastering Childish Gambino's " This Is America", and is a six-time nominee for the Grammy Award fo ...

– mastering * Frida Klingberg – front cover photography * Mathias Schukert – front cover artwork * Lasse Nilson – vinyl artwork

References

{{Reflist 2025 albums Sally Shapiro albums Italians Do It Better albums