Natural Born Losers

Natural Born Losers is the fifth studio album by singer-songwriter Nicole Dollanganger. It marks her first album professionally recorded in a studio. It was released digitally on October 9, 2015 by Eerie Organization, an independent label founded by Grimes and Jaime Brooks.

Background
Natural Born Losers marked Dollanganger's first album to be recorded in a studio, as her previous releases had all been self-recorded in her home. Canadian singer and songwriter Grimes, impressed by demos Dollanganger had released for the album, formed an independent label, Eerie Organization, to help release the finished record. "It blew up my brain so hard that I literally started Eerie to fucking put it out because it’s a crime against humanity for this music not to be heard," she said.

Release
Eerie Organization released Natural Born Losers digitally on October 9, 2015. In autumn 2023 the album saw its first physical release, and was pressed on cassette and CD in limited quantities.

Reception
Ian Gormely of Exclaim! awarded the album seven out of ten stars, writing that it "finds the singer dropping the Tumblr-core cultural pastiches of her past for a more insular world, making this her most intimate recording to date. Despite upping the fidelity though, she keeps things simple, adding droning guitars or some pounding drums when necessary. Otherwise, she uses the studio to add presence to her music, imbuing these 11 songs with a floating ambiance that draws direct lines to artists like Julee Cruise and This Mortal Coil." David Sackllah of Consequence of Sound noted that "Dollanganger excels at taking the familiar and twisting it into something obscene. She isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel, but she doesn’t have to. She’s woven an intricate tapestry of bloodshed into an astounding debut that magnifies the boldness of her songwriting."

Hazel Cills of Pitchfork awarded the album a 6.6 out of 10 rating, writing that Dollanganger's "portrait of tortured sexuality and death is tethered to an ambiguous portrait of backwoods living, a North American wilderness where anything and anyone can be hunted. Natural Born Losers plays like a work of wicked anti-pastoralism from the perspective of a bad girl who stares out at her rustic life with not wide-eyed romanticism but sad familiarity and resignation." David Turner of Rolling Stone awarded the album three out of five stars, noting: "Even Dollanganger’s most affectionate songs have an unshakeable sense of isolation (see the twisted alt-pop dream “You’re So Cool”). Dollanganger began as a bedroom-recording artist, but Natural Born Losers shows that her music is ready to escape those wallpapered confines."