Tones And I Hates ‘Dance Monkey’ And Dreads Having To Perform It

Tones and I has dropped a bombshell of a confession about her breakout hit 'Dance Monkey'.

The Australian singer-songwriter has revealed that she actually sometimes despises the song that shot her to international stardom.

The dance hit put her on the map in 2019, and, despite it winning her an ARIA for best pop release and it going platinum 16 times over, she said she now 'loathes' the track.

Tones and I, whose real name is Toni Watson, told Smallzy's Surgery on Nova that her breakout hit has seen her pigeonholed in the music industry.

"They do this thing [in LA] where they put you in a room with a different person every day," she said.

"I was in the room with men every day, which is fine, but there was a few of them that had all worked together heaps before and so they just kind of start going off on a tangent.

"And, usually, it was directed at 'Dance Monkey' like, 'OK, this girl had a hit with this kind of song, like, let's go there."

The 24-year-old admitted that while the song was 'great' at the time, she did tell host Kent 'Smallzy' Small that she didn't 'want to go there anymore'.

"I wrote that song on my own, not trying to do a single thing, and it happened," she said of the US top five hit. "I loathe that song a lot of the time. A lot of times I don't want to sing it.

"I'm not gonna write another song like it ... I just want to tell people how I'm feeling."

The four-time ARIA winner has previously spoken about her future in music, telling another radio show Breakfast with Gawndy and Maz that she won't just stop singing 'Dance Monkey' - she'll soon stop singing altogether.

"I don't know how much longer I'm going to be Tones and I for," she said.

"I mean, realistically I'm going to give myself another four years and then I want to be a songwriter. I feel like this is a lot and I want to keep writing music.

"As soon as my mental health isn't wanting to do this I'm stopping... I want to be happy and right now I am, but it can waver, and I wouldn't continue it unless it was fulfilling me and making me happy."

Tones And I dropped a new song 'Eyes Don't Lie' on March 17, which was her first new music since her debut album Welcome To The Madhouse.