“Ugly‍‌‍‍‌‍‌‍‍‌ When You Love Me” by Exzenya – Where psychology meets Dark-Pop precision.

“Ugly When You Love Me”: Dark-pop that doesn’t just express emotion—it exposes it.

Exzenya’s music is a real treat for the intellect and the emotions, besides being in the dark-pop genre and at the same time having the scale and vibe of a cinema soundtrack. She holds a degree in Psychology and Communications with further studies in behavior and forensics. After merging all these into one – her academic background and her artistic side – the outcome is songs that not only understand the mind and the feeling but also sound like a big thing.

We got a chance to interview Exzenya for this song, and we found a lot of unspoken tales!

Let's get started:

1. The song touches on love turning manipulative and suffocating—what inspired you to explore “Ugly When You Love Me”?

   
   

“Ugly When You Love Me” came from capturing a very specific moment in my mind — the exact point where love shifts from feeling supportive to feeling constricting. I’ve always been deeply interested in the full range of human behavior and emotion, and this was one of those moments that stays with you because of how sharply everything changes.

The inspiration wasn’t heartbreak — it was recognition. It was that sudden internal click where you understand the truth of a dynamic you’ve been trying to rationalize for too long. That shift can feel cold, jarring, and unmistakably honest. I wanted to trap that exact feeling in the song — the moment you finally name what’s happening, and everything becomes clear.

2. How would you describe the mood of the song in your own words?

   
   

The mood of “Ugly When You Love Me” is confrontational, volatile, and emotionally stripped of all diplomacy. It doesn’t negotiate, and it doesn’t cushion anything. It’s the moment when the emotional pressure that’s been building for far too long finally breaks, and every buried truth rises to the surface without restraint.

The anger in this song isn’t theatrical — it’s earned. It’s the kind of anger that forms after repeated manipulation, after being pushed past every boundary you tried to hold. It comes from recognizing exactly what someone has been doing to you, and refusing to carry the weight of their distortion any longer.

The production reflects that psychological rupture — tight, tense, and intentionally claustrophobic. The vocals sit right on the edge: controlled enough to stay stable, but tense enough that you can hear the internal fight.

There is nothing gentle in the mood of this track. It’s the sound of a person reclaiming their voice the moment they realize someone else has been trying to silence it.

3. What can listeners expect next from you after the sharp, dramatic energy of “Ugly When You Love Me”?

   
   

The next release is “That’s the Story of My Life,” the sixth track on the Story of My Life album. It shifts completely from the confrontational edge of “Ugly When You Love Me” into something more anthemic, grounded, and intentionally universal.

This song pulls from the full spectrum of human experience — strength, mistakes, growth, resilience, contradictions — and holds all of it with honesty and a touch of humility. It acknowledges that people are complex, that life isn’t one-dimensional, and that everyone carries both their best and worst moments into who they eventually become.

The tone is empowering without being self-serious, and there’s a subtle sarcasm woven into the concept, the way people use that phrase to sum up a chaotic or contradictory life experience. It’s meant to be relatable on a broad scale, not tied to one story or one person.

After a track fueled by confrontation and emotional rupture, this next one offers a different kind of strength — an anthem built on accepting the whole of a life, not just the individual pieces.

4. How do you balance cinematic intensity with pop accessibility in your music?

   
   

The balance comes from treating emotion and structure as two separate tools. The cinematic intensity is driven by depth — bigger feelings, sharper edges, psychological weight, atmosphere, tension, and contrast. The pop accessibility comes from clarity — clean hooks, intentional pacing, memorable motifs, and the instinctive rhythm of how people naturally absorb a story.

The music leans into strong imagery and emotional force, but it’s always shaped in a way that’s easy to follow. Rather than watering down the intensity, the structure frames it so it hits harder. The goal is to make complex feelings feel immediate, and to make heavy themes move with the momentum and familiarity of pop.

It’s a combination of bold expression and precise architecture: cinematic weight built inside a framework people can step into without feeling lost.

5. Since your debut, your fan base has grown massively. How has audience response influenced your artistic evolution?

   
   

Audience response hasn’t changed the direction of the music, but it has clarified its purpose. When people connect with songs that explore difficult emotions, psychological tension, humor, contradiction, or vulnerability, it confirms that there’s value in being direct and unfiltered.

Rather than shaping the work to fit reactions, the reactions reinforce the freedom to keep creating without limitations — to stay bold, stay experimental, and stay truthful in the approach. The growth in listeners has shown that there is space for music that moves between genres, tones, and emotional registers without apologizing for that range.

The evolution hasn’t come from adjusting to the audience; it has come from the knowledge that the audience is willing to follow wherever the creativity leads. That kind of trust sharpens the work, not by changing it, but by strengthening the commitment to its honesty and intensity.

6. Do you think your academic studies in behavior and forensics give you an edge in understanding the darker themes of human emotion?

Yes — the academic background influences the work in a very specific way. Behavioural science and forensic study train you to look at human emotion through patterns, contradictions, and motives rather than surface expression. Instead of taking feelings at face value, you learn to trace what created them, what sustains them, and what people are trying to conceal beneath them.

That perspective naturally carries into the music. The darker themes aren’t approached from melodrama or guesswork — they’re approached the same way you’d examine a complex case: by breaking down tension, distortion, projection, boundary collapse, emotional manipulation, and the unspoken dynamics between people.

Artistically, that creates songs that feel more layered. The emotional weight isn’t just described; it’s dissected. The lyrics come from an understanding of why people act the way they do, not just what they feel. The production often mirrors that psychology — sharp contrasts, controlled tension, atmospheric pressure, or sudden shifts that reflect internal turning points.

It doesn’t give an “edge” in the competitive sense — it gives accuracy. A clearer way of capturing the parts of human emotion that most people sense but don’t know how to articulate. That clarity shapes the artistic approach, turning psychological insight into something listeners can feel instinctively, even if they don’t have the vocabulary for it.

7. If you had to describe this single in one word, what would it be and why?

   
   

Confrontational.

And honestly, asking someone with a billion words running through their mind at any given moment to narrow it down to one is nearly impossible — but if one word has to carry the weight, that’s the one. The song calls everything out directly, without softening the blow or disguising the message. Every part of it — the tone, the delivery, the pacing — is built around that blunt honesty. It says what people usually swallow back, and it doesn’t flinch while doing it.

8. What was the most fun part of making the song?

   
   

The most enjoyable part of making this song was getting to express the kind of line that usually comes to you long after the moment has passed. Everyone knows that delayed comeback — the perfect thing you wish you had said at the time, but it only shows up when the situation is already over. Turning that feeling into an actual song was oddly satisfying.

The process also had a humor to it. The song deals with a confrontational moment, but there’s a dry, slightly twisted sense of humor underneath. Sometimes the only way to make sense of uncomfortable or disappointing experiences from the past is to look at them through that lens. It makes the heavy parts lighter, and it makes the writing more enjoyable.

And yes, there’s the quiet amusement in knowing that when a song like this comes out, a few people from the past may briefly wonder if it’s directed at them — not out of spite, but because that’s what human nature does.

The funniest moment happened when I played the early version for my husband. We have a strong relationship, so his reaction caught me off guard. He listened, paused, and said, “Who was that about?” That moment made me laugh later, because it showed how instinctively people insert themselves into art, even when they’re not the subject at all.

The fun came from blending a sharp emotional truth with humor, closure, and that ironic after-the-fact clarity. It allowed something intense to become something creatively freeing.