News : Ellie Goulding Releases Empowering New Track ‘Black Prada Dress’

Ellie Goulding has unveiled her uplifting new single ‘Black Prada Dress’, a track she says was inspired by the sense of liberation that can come from embracing uncertainty.

The singer is preparing to release her sixth studio album, ‘I Know Too Much’, on September 4. The 10 track project follows her 2023 UK Number One album ‘Higher Than Heaven’. You can pre-order/pre-save it here.

On Friday (June 5), Goulding officially released ‘Black Prada Dress’, the first single from the upcoming record. Fans first heard the song during her appearance at BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend in Sunderland last month, and she also performed it during an appearance on Later… with Jools Holland on Sunday night (June 7).

According to a press release, the song serves as a “self-aware portrait of the fractured selves we construct to survive”. Goulding co wrote the track and worked with executive producer Jack Rochon, whom she first discovered on TikTok before he became widely recognised.

Discussing the single, Goulding said it helps introduce the themes explored throughout the new album. “The album came from the idea that maybe we can know too much,” she explained. “There is a certain kind of freedom in the ease of not knowing.”

“This album is a collection of songs that represent a crossroads in my life where I realized what the freedom of not knowing has gifted me in the past, yet a time when I am at the precipice of understanding the true power in knowing,” she continued.

“Through the chaos of this great change, I went to my comfort zone and found my refuge in the studio. My initial instinct was I didn’t know where it was all going, but I just knew I needed to be in the studio. Writing a song has always been my best form of therapy.”

When speaking with NME late last year about her forthcoming music, Goulding explained: “This is probably the most honest I’ve been in my lyrics. I don’t have anyone to answer to. In certain situations, you’re trying to please someone, but for the first time ever, I don’t feel like I have to do that. I’m just making music that I love.

“It’s a really liberating feeling I have at the moment. The songs aren’t too on the nose or mainstream, but they’re also not too unusual. It’s all just really freeing and different.”

She also told us: “Back before I signed a record deal, I was just writing songs, letting them come out naturally and not thinking too much.

“To be honest though, I still really have nothing to lose because I’m always doing projects that indulge me, like classical music, electronic, and dance, plus I still get to write pop songs that are really appealing to me.”

Ellie Goulding – ‘I Know Too Much’. CREDIT: Press

In 2025, Goulding released the empowering single ‘Destiny’. Speaking with NME, she explained that the track was shaped by the heartbreak and unanswered emotions that followed her divorce. “It was a marriage, not just a relationship. I didn’t know what else to do other than make music.

“This was the first time I’d heard a track in this era of my life that seemed to just spell out acceptance and surrender of what had happened, rather than indulging myself in a really sad song that would’ve just continued to break me.”

Earlier this year, Goulding marked receiving an MBE by paying tribute to women working tirelessly in climate protection.

NME awarded ‘Higher Than Heaven’ four stars, praising it for being “may not be strictly personal, but it definitely sounds like an album crafted with care, skill and no small amount of flair”.

Last year, Goulding teamed up with Calvin Harris once again for the single ‘Free’, following the huge success of their chart topping collaboration ‘Miracle’ the year before.