Save All Your money. Sell Off The Memories. Buy Back Your Life — 2024 in 11 songs

Each year, at least for the last few years, writing a sincere or a genuine introduction to this has become not harder than selecting the songs I end up focusing on, but it is more frustrating, and takes exponentially longer than it perhaps should.

I think it is because I always wish to avoid repeating myself—regardless of my efforts, I do wind up saying similar things, or using familiar expressions, to describe the process. And it is of course the process itself that I do end up, perhaps, over explaining in the end. 

The way I listen to music, both analytically and for leisure, and the way I write about music, both throughout the year, and in the final month, as an exercise in reflection, continue to evolve, and grow. And for as many differences as there are, year to year, in how this list comes together and the liberties I take with the very notion of a "top ten" list, the thing that is similar, year to year, is the song that was the most impactful for me, or, for argument's sake, "my favorite," is the song that was the most emotionally affecting. 

10 - “Sympathy is A Knife” by Charli XCX
Why I wanna buy a gun? Why I wanna shoot myself?

And my fear, of course, is that the aggressive, intense, and often thoughtful, or playful at times, music that is housed within the world created by Charli XCX, on her unprecedentedly successful album Brat will, in time, and maybe it has even already happened to some extent, but that it will be overshadowed by the role the idea of the album took in the zeitgeist.

Brat, as an album—its standard edition, the expanded edition with three additional tracks, and then the companion piece featuring remixes, and the concept of things, or people, or whatever, “being Brat,” was inescapable as the summer turned into the autumn. And it is, of course, easy to feel the burnout or the over-saturation with anything that is so ubiquitous—the garish bright green color of the album’s cover, and the simple, lowercase font, often presented as a little pixelated or blurry, to only add a layer of smirking edge to the aesthetic, were, as one may anticipate, co-opted almost immediately.

And so it is easy, seemingly, to forget, or maybe not even forget but easy to just simply look past the fact that Brat is an album—the sixth full-length from Charlotte Aitchison, arriving a decade after her debut, and an album that, given the amount of buzz surrounding it, both before and immediately after its release, introduced her to a much, much larger and wider audience. 

Musically, from top to bottom, Brat is an abrasive, electrifying homage to the late 90s and early 2000s rave sound, and culture, in London—and, yes, a number of the songs on the album are almost strictly based around the kind of vibe they create, with the lyrics taking a backseat to the pulsating and hypnotic sensation that does compel you to writhe and flail in the darkness of a dance floor. “Sympathy is A Knife” will do that to you, too, though. From the second it begins, to the final, warbled, exhalation that Aitchison howls at the last moments, it is unrelenting in its intensity, but for as much of a feeling as the song constructs, it is one of the moments on Brat where the lyrics do reveal something of a surprisingly personal nature—creating a sharp juxtaposition between the confrontational arranging and production, and the introspective isolation offered up in Aitchison’s writing. 

“Sympathy” begins with the sharp, stabbing (intentional certainly) blown-out, scuzzy tones of a keyboard—this melody, and progression, continues throughout a bulk of the song, with skittering, clapping and rattling percussive elements tumble around underneath it, creating a dizzying, intense environment. 

There, of course, is a darkness, or something ominous happening within the verses to the song, both musically, and lyrically, but “Sympathy,” at least in the chorus, within the arranging and production from Finn Keane, an associate of A.G. Cook, who has both writing and production credits across the album, the song soars to triumphant sounding heights, with the elements becoming much more bombastic, and sweeping in their sense of drama, while Aitchison’s voice, drowning in reverb and distortion, howls the titular phrase within her lyrics.

“Sympathy” is, at its core, about anxiety, and Aitchison, as the protagonist, is still grappling with how she is perceived by others—specifically, by other women.

“I don’t wanna share the space,” she begins, her voice nearly robotic in how it allows the syllables to fall into place in the jittery rhythm. “I don’t wanna force a smile,” she continues. “This one girl taps my insecurities. Don’t know if it’s real, or if I’m spiraling.”

“I’m embarrassed to have it but need the sympathy,” she confesses just before the song detonates for the noisy, cavernous chorus. “I couldn’t even be her if I tried,” Aitchison bellows. “I’m opposite—I’m on the other side. I feel all these feelings I can’t control…all this sympathy is just a knife. Why I can’t even grit my teeth and lie?”

The severity of the anxiety, and concern over perception, is amplified in the startling, and honestly iconic, opening lines to the second verse—the shuddering theatricality of the chorus then disappears after the briefest pause to reset the instrumentation back to the familiar tones, and range, of the verse before. 

“Why I wanna buy a gun? Why I want to shoot myself,” Aitchison deadpans. “Volatile at war with my dialogue. I’d say that there was a god if they could stop this wild voice tearing me apart.”

I don’t think that in this song, or in really any of the songs on Brat, Aitchison is looking for resolution of any kind, or answers to any of the questions she poses—“Sympathy is A Knife” offers none to her, or to us, as listeners. It is suggested that the sympathy offered here is feigned, and is more cutting to be the recipient of. And for as exhilarating the breakneck pacing of the song is, as it careens towards the end, the final thing we hear, after the music cuts out abruptly, is the warbled and cathartic exhalation of “Oh no, oh no,” leaving us with a surprisingly resonant, thoughtful moment that lingers long after the album itself have both moved on to the next song, and has ended. 

9 - “Three Sisters” by Waxahatchee

If you’re not living, then you’re dying….

Both in structure, as a song, and where it falls in the sequencing of Katie Crutchfield’s sixth full-length outing under her Waxahatchee moniker, Tigers Blood (it’s the opening track), “Three Sisters” knows exactly what it’s doing, and how to do it with a smoldering kind of grace.

I am remiss to refer to “Three Sisters” as a continuation of the aesthetic, or tone, that Crutchfield set with, “Oxbow,” the ultimately swirling and dazzling opening track on her previous album as Waxahatchee, 2020’s Saint Cloud, but there are similarities in how they operate, musically, and what that means when placed at the top of the record—and there are similarities in terms of the themes Crutchfield explores in her songwriting, and how, at least in the case of Tigers Blood and “Three Sisters,” will return to those ideas throughout the rest of the album.

There is a deliberateness to how “Three Sisters” slowly simmers, and in a sense, winds itself up over roughly the first two-thirds of its run, before it reaches its climax, and then does truly unravel in a beautiful, surprisingly writhing, and unsurprisingly somber way—a convergence of the urge to move your body, even though you are, perhaps, as I was, caught in a moment of pensive introspection, and a little disoriented by the conflicting feelings that come with being “sad, but willing to dance.”

The musical elements to “Three Sisters” do really fold themselves in, over time, the way you would when adding ingredients into a recipe—following the instructions to keep different parts separate until it calls for them to be added and mixed. Opening with the dramatic strum of the acoustic guitar and the notes of a piano ringing out, Crutchfield’s assemblage of players on Tigers Blood continue to arrive on cue—first with the western-tinged melody plucked out on the clean-toned electric guitar, and the rolling and subtle notes of the bass, followed, eventually, by the extended rippling snare drum roll that does reach a peak, thought he song itself, then, does not “explode” or ascend, really, but in a moment of both jubilation and sorrow, finds its way into an undeniable groove after all of the elements tumble together, jostling around in time until the end.

And because the music does eventually come together in such a slow motion yet triumphant kind of way, I am hesitant to say that “Three Sisters” is assembled in such a way that it disguises its conceit through its arranging or its infectious melody, but it does wish for you, and me, as listeners, to kind of ride the subtly cathartic rush that arrives near the end of the song, and in that moment, perhaps give less consideration to the ideas that Crutchfield has spent the first portion of the song introducing.

A line that Crutchfield returned to in the song “Oxbow,” or a request, rather, was “I want it all”—here, on “Three Sisters,” she has seemingly received the aforementioned “all,” and is ruminating on what that means. “It’s a state of mind you designed,” she sings early in the song when the elements are all still slowly finding their way. “You get everything that you wanted.”

But. When you get everything you wanted, what do you do with it. What do you do next. 

Crutchfield, in the press for Tigers Blood, described the album as being in the middle of things—she has been romantically involved with musician Kevin Morby for a number of years, and much has been made out of her journey towards sobriety, which was ultimately documented, lyrically, on the material found on Saint Cloud. This middle she finds herself in is neither a good thing, nor a bad thing, it is just where she is, and so there is a restlessness at the core of Tigers Blood—a want for something different, and perhaps unknown, but also understanding that things are good, and in some cases, maybe even better where you are currently. 

There is a restlessness at the core of Tigers Blood, and that theme takes myriad shapes, through any number of phrasings, throughout Crutchfield’s writing on the album, but one moment, specifically in “Three Sisters,” that did stop me in my tracks during my first listen the morning the album was released, was a line that she seemingly tosses away as an introspective aside within the second verse—“If you’re not living, then you’re dying.”

Because there is a want, or desire, for something greater, or larger. Or different, Or unknown.

You get everything that you wanted.

And there is a difference, to me, at least, between “living” and “being alive.” There are places where they overlap, certainly, but I think they are, in the end, descriptive of two different things—not opposing, but also at times in opposition with the condition brought on by one of those things, then, preventing the other from being able to occur with any ease.

Crutchfield never says if the middle of things is good or bad—maybe it’s both, depending on the day. Or the moment. Maybe it’s neither. It is just the state that she finds herself in now at 35. And in the end, as “Three Sisters” quickly finds its way out of the rollicking, pensive slink it builds up to, there is no resolution really, save for an admission made to the off-stage character that she’s been addressing the whole time. “Unsuspecting sky, all my life—I’ve been running from what you want.” You get everything you want. You find yourself restless in a long middle stretch. You are alive. But you wish to live.

You try to find the balance between the two as best as you are able. If you are able. And for a few stunning, pulsating moments, Crutchfield is doing just that on “Three Sisters,” and accomplishes it with a comforting, tender, and thoughtful kind of beauty. 

8 - “Dollar Slice” by Bloomsday

What were you dreaming—you were kicking, and whisper screaming…

You can, and certainly I have, though in recent years I have tried to be more thoughtful about it, used “indie rock” as a catchall descriptor—it covers so much. Sound. Aesthetic. How an album is released into the world. And “indie” or “indie rock” as genres, or descriptions, can certainly slant in myriad ways—music that tends to be looser in sound, perhaps, or a little experimental or daring, in some regard, because the stakes are potentially lower. It can do all of that with guitars, or a more traditional “band” sound, and it can sound like what is traditionally thought of as “rock” music—or it can find itself retreating inward, into something hushed and folk adjacent. 

Iris Garrison’s project, Bloomsday, really walks that “indie” line carefully—both the group’s 2022 EP, and their debut full-length, Heart of The Artichoke, were released independently, and on Artichoke, the group teeters between a more introspective, quiet, “indie folk” kind of sound, based around gentle instrumentation, and appearing as more of an “indie rock” outfit—using razor sharp, observational, thoughtful songwriting, and infectious melodies backed by the occasional crunchy guitar or soaring delivery of a chorus.

The second single issued from Artichoke, “Dollar Slice,” falls into the latter—it is the moment on the album when Bloomsday sound most like they are operating as a band, and it is the moment on the album when you, as a listener, absolutely believe in them. It’s powerful, considerate, and so well structured that it does not, like, knock the wind out of you, but it does stop you in your tracks, specifically near the song’s cathartic finale, with just how impressively it all comes together.

Musically, “Dollar Slice” is not exactly indicative of what the rest of the albums sound like—though it is one of a few places across Artichoke where Bloomsday does embrace this kind of slow-burning, guitar-driven sound. Opening with a very hollow-sounding acoustic guitar strum, the other elements of the song begin arriving almost immediately, and there is such a downcast nature to all of it, which is, I think, what makes it such a marvel. Like, it is somber, and it ultimately builds itself up to something beautiful, and catchy, while still treading water in this melancholy. 

That acoustic guitar is accompanied by an electric, playing the lead melody, steady, crisp drumming, and bass notes that surge through—and there is, throughout Artichoke, often a twang to how the songs tumble together, and “Dollar Slice” is one of them. Executed with an edge for the howl that Garrison’s voice rises to, and the searing, distended guitar work that fills in between the first chorus and second verse, there is just a little mournful drawl that floats effectively throughout.

Garrison’s lyrics are ambiguous enough that it leaves a little to the imagination, but direct enough that you get the sense that there is a central tension between them, and the off-stage character they are in conversation with, as well as the humanized element of a higher power. The opening lines alone do paint an evocative picture—“Eggs over easy—just how you like me, ‘cause you’re always running,” they sing quietly, just before the song begins to build slightly, and we are led towards the chorus. 

“What were you dreaming,” they ask. “You were kicking and whisper screaming while you were sleeping,” they continue, before they are given the answer. “You said, ‘You won’t believe this—I saw God buying a dollar slice.’ He said, ‘Won’t you try to let go and live your life instead of wasting it.’”

When did you stop believing in god? Like, for real. Or, are you still a believer, as much as one can be. Were you always a believer. 

Garrison, in the press materials for the album, explains that while they are not a believer, they acknowledge that there is, perhaps, a “higher power”—and “Dollar Slice” explores the kind of humanization of that higher power (akin to, as they note, Joan Osborne’s “One of Us”), and finds that power, whomever they are, and calling them out on their bullshit. 

As “Dollar Slice” builds, then explodes in a brief, ferocious torrent, then recedes, there is no resolution, really, for Garrison—just the fleeting mentions of seeing god in the every day—eating pizza, riding public transportation, but asking the larger questions that we all, certainly, find ourselves ruminating on. Not only if there is a higher power of any kind, or how strong your belief is in one, but certainly of the larger, more introspective things presented, like letting go, and living our lives, instead of wasting them, and, as Garrison bellows at the end, wasting all of our time. 

7 - “Give Me A Sign” by Fabiana Palladino

I’m incapable of trying to turn back…

If the sound of Fabiana Palladino’s self-titled debut full length was not enough, the presumably 1980s, sci-fi/noir-inspired look of her portrait that graces the front cover should let you, as a listener, know the kind of in earnest and regularly well-executed homage to the sound and aesthetic of a specific era of pop music you are getting yourself into.

Across the album, Palladino and her collaborators, including Harry Otieno Adoy, and the enigmatic figure Jai Paul, effortlessly create songs that conjure a truly dazzling and brilliant facsimile of a kind of Top 40, FM radio pop music that I, at least, associate with the mid-to-late 1980s and into the early 1990s—not exactly “carefree,” per se, but music that was, and still is, unabashedly fun to hear, with lyrics that are often full of a palpable or visceral kind of longing.

And certainly, there are moments across Fabiana Palladino that are potentially more energetic in their tone, yes, but “Give Me A Sign,” placed within the first half of the record, was the song that did stop me in my tracks completely when I sat down with the album for the first time—it skitters along a very thin line of dramatic tension, and while the song is pushed forward through the varying degrees of Palladino’s cooing and yearning, there is little if any release of said tension—the song ends, not abruptly, but unceremoniously, and we are left without resolve.

Musically, there are fewer elements, or layers, moving around on “Give Me A Sign,” in comparison to the textures heard elsewhere on the album—here, the song kind of lurches itself forward in a slow, sultry way, through the sharp, steady live drum-kit, and the muted chugging of an electric guitar, which is given a few opportunities throughout to flourish, slightly, with a little riff that adds a punctuation in between Palladino’s line delivery. And even as the song gains momentum, with the inclusion of ethereal background vocals, and atmospheric, swooshing synthesizers, Palladino, as a performer, keeps a tight grasp on everything so that no element is given a chance to get away from her or the underlying, sensual tensions within the song.

And I am often thinking, within the context of contemporary music, about the “Kingdom of Desire.” And where a song about love takes place—if we, as listeners, are taken along with the artist in question, as they chase after something, or someone, who is just out of reach and we are brought right to the moment before, and left wondering what happens after. Or, if we are shown what happens in the aftermath of a breakup from the perspective of someone who wishes things, within the context of the song, had turned out differently—better.

There is a truly smoldering sense of desire that ripples throughout “Give Me A Sign,” and Palladino uses the almost stuttering, or choppy rhythm of the song to play with her voice—the volume which she delivers some words over others, to emphasize them, and the way she hold certain words or syllables out, carrying them through the loose melody, and letting them tumble in and find their place.

There is a fragmented nature to the way Palladino gets her thoughts out—as if she is too distraught to sing them in more complete or structured sentences, with many of them being just phrases, or thoughts, cast into the air, as the longing and pleading does become more intense the further along we’re taken.

“Alright?,” she begins, delivered in a way that has so much weight behind it. “Ever wonder why I lied when you tried to say goodbye?,” she continues. “I said I was fine.”

“I guess I didn’t see the light in time,” she continues later. “Didn’t try to change your mind—‘cause I couldn’t decide.”

“Give Me A Sign” doesn’t follow what I would consider to be a traditional kind of verse/chorus/verse structure, but rather, it finds Palladino building things up through the use of repetition with certain lines, giving the song overall, even though it is heartbreaking and a little icy in some places, a kind of comforting, familiar feeling.

“Here I am, incapable of trying to turn back,” she confesses before pleading. “Give me a sign”—this demand, then, increasing slightly in intensity, when it is repeated, interchanged with, “Don’t ask me why.”

In a song that does take place within the idea of the “kingdom of desire,” we are not often privy to what occurs if the protagonist does ever catch the object of their affection. The song ends in the moment just before. The same goes for a song like “Give Me A Sign.” Palladino spends this time delicately and beautifully pleading towards someone, and the song finds its way to a conclusion before she receives an answer, or, rather, a sign.

If the song itself, in its repetition of the titular phrase, creates a kind of ease and familiarity, it is also the tone of the song as a whole that helps conjure a sense of familiarity. There’s nothing derivative at all about Palladino’s sound, and how it uses sincerity to explore things both timeless and of a very specific time—heartbreak, through a glistening, melancholic lens. 

6- “The Kill” by Maggie Rogers

You kept my secrets and stole my weaknesses…

And the thing that struck me the very first time “The Kill,” sequenced within the first half of Maggie Rogers’ Don’t Forget Me, and the thing that still strikes me about it, like, nine months after my initial listen of the album, is just how absolutely unrelenting it is. Clipping along at arguably a breakneck pace, Rogers refuses to let up with “The Kill”’s propulsive, slithering momentum until it makes its final exhalation.

Rogers, as an artist, has come a long way over the last five years since her major label debut, Heard It In A Past Life—and has come even further from the rootsy, folksy self-released material from when she was barely out of her teens. No longer the sullen young woman sitting next to Pharrell Williams while he listens to her breakout single “Alaska” for the first time, Rogers exudes a kind of confidence that you can often hear surging through her finest work, and “The Kill” is certainly one of those moments.

There is a restlessness to Rogers’ as a songwriter and performer. She continues to make what is inherently pop music—often well-written and thoughtful, but her sound continues to shift and evolve with each album and even from song to song within the album itself. Heard It In A Past Life thrived in a kind of glitchier, slinkier aesthetic, while its follow-up, Surrender, was often overblown and bombastic—and incredibly lusty in its lyricism. Her most recent, Don’t Forget Me, overall, has a kind of easygoing nature to it—there is a kind of relaxed introspection that you can hear through a bulk of the 10 songs included, with “The Kill,” not even the centerpiece of the album, standing out as one of the most exciting and exuberant sonically, and most infectious in terms of the heights she takes it to in the chorus.

There is an understated nature to a majority of how “The Kill” operates, musically speaking. Like, it is unrelenting in its approach—there is rarely a reprieve in dexterous guitar noodling and snappy rhythm that you hear, but it is understated in the sense that it never runs the risk of overpowering Rogers’ vocals—the lyrics are important, clever, and insightful, and there is a breathless kind of immediacy that she sings them with, so when “The Kill” does wish to ascend slightly, she’s not relying on some really dramatic thing to happen within the instrumentation, but she’s relying on herself, and the little pushes she gives her voice throughout, though even her vocal performance is much more restrained here than it is in comparison to other places on this record, and elsewhere in her canonical work.

Built around elements that are truly dizzying in how they swirl and circle one another, at times with a sense of drama—I’m thinking of the chorus here—“The Kill” works, yes, because of how it takes ahold and never lets go until the very final moment, but it is also the vivid imagery of Rogers’ lyricism, and the way she depicts what is ultimately the end of a romantic relationship, though rather than only looking elsewhere to place the blame, she recognizes the role she played in its demise, alongside the former object of her affection—the off-stage character, or antagonist, the song is addressed to.

Rogers spends the verses of the song, and, I mean, the chorus as well, in a state of reflection that is both punctuated with heavy wistfulness and cynicism, and it’s the convergence of both of those things that creates the sharp edge of tension that the song skitters along in search of release.

“One of these days, I’m gonna wake up smiling—one of these days, I’m gonna cry,” confesses Rogers in the opening line, already walking that edge of either side created by the tensions in this relationship. “Remember the days we used to drive upstate singing indie rock songs in the car?” she implores, again, juxtaposing something pleasant to recall before punctuating it with something less so. “You wore your fresh leather and blamed it on the weather for being the reason you were.”

The second verse, though, is more tender in how Rogers looks back upon this time. “One of these days, I’m gonna wake up fresh and wipe all the past from my eyes,” she declares. “Curl up next to you in tall grass, sunshine, and wrap my body’s shape around your side.” 

Nearing the second chorus, she continues that kind of tender, wistfulness—the type, and it can be in any kind of relationship really, where you imagine things for yourselves that may unfortunately, through nobody’s fault, not come to fruition. “Remember the days we used to ideate about what we would do all our lives,” Rogers reflects. “I’d be a singer and an old bourbon drinker, and we’d have our band on the side.”

The realities of this relationship as depicted, and its dissolution, are spelled out in the choruses, where Rogers alternates between not so much finger pointing, interchanging the pronouns used between herself and her former love interest, but rather the understanding and acknowledgment that they both are at fault. “So difficult but so invincible,” she begins, the words coming quickly out of her mouth, weaving themselves into an infectious melody. “Irresistible—but I loved you still. You kept my secrets and stole my weaknesses in your white t-shirt, but I couldn’t fill the shoes you laid down for me from the ones who came before,” she continues. “I was all the way in, and you were halfway out the door. I was an animal making my way up the hill, and you were going in for the kill.”

Rogers certainly, as demonstrated on both of her previous major label releases, can pen songs that are about love, as well as love songs—“The Kill,” certainly, is a song about love, because it is not a breakup anthem, exactly, but rather about the difficult acceptance that one arrives at over time. She remains humble, though she does not depict either herself or her ex in unflattering ways exactly, and is evocative enough in her descriptions that, as “The Kill” relentlessly pushes itself forward toward an end, she blurs the line between lust and animosity until it becomes a beautiful, albeit frustrating, mess of emotions to sit with. 

5 - “The Bar’s Closed” by Pillow Queens

Save all your money. Sell off the memories. Buy back your life.

What does heartbreak sound like. 

Does it sound sad? Certainly. But, there is often more than one emotion at work and more at stake in the wake of a romantic relationship’s demise. Does it sound angry? Is it snarling or ferocious? Are the words spoken, or in this case, are they sung through gritted teeth? Does it sound bitter? Is it self-deprecating? Is it confused? Does it walk a line between regret and remorse, occasionally toppling into one side over the other?

What does heartbreak sound like. 

On their third full-length, Name Your Sorrow, the Irish quartet Pillow Queens explores the myriad sounds and emotions that one must work through after what is depicted to be the long, slow, and difficult dissolution of a marriage—and the album’s centerpiece is also its most stunning, and one of the most harrowing and impressive songs in the group’s catalog, “The Bar’s Closed.”

Bookended with bursts of distended, churning feedback, “The Bar’s Closed” works from within what could viewed as a quiet/loud/quiet song structure, though more than anything else, it works from a place of tension or restraint in the bleak, and at times ominous verses, before lurching itself forward and opening up a little, not really releasing any of that tension but just becoming a little more aggressive with each pummel of the snare drum or strum of the crunchy electric guitars.

The song begins with a tiptoed dance of sorts between a melodic, delicate riff played out in the guitar, the light clattering of the percussion, keeping time within a genuinely interesting rhythmic pattern, and a thick, rolling, and honestly, a kind of bouncy bass line, with all of these elements slowly swirling around underneath vocalist Pam Connolly’s wounded voice and unflinchingly raw narrative. 

There is, of course, a real darkness that looms over the entirety of Name Your Sorrow, simply because of what it is about—some moments are inherently a little lighter, or in some instances, a lot lustier, than others, but “The Bar’s Closed” reflects a larger swarth of Connolly’s relationship coming to an end, and in moments fueled by anger or grief or resentment, the places we find ourselves though we perhaps shouldn’t be, and the decisions we try to talk ourselves out of making. 

Connolly wastes absolutely no time pulling us, as listeners, into the depths of her despair. “I’ve been watching you lose your light,” she begins. “Caught up in someone to destroy your life. Keeping it ’til the last goodbye. Wish I was someone who you thought of that night,” she sings quietly and pensively.

The momentum of “The Bar’s Closed” gathers in the moments before the chorus arrives, and it is here where Connolly delivers one of the most jaw-dropping, evocative lyrics that I have heard this year—putting into words what you, perhaps, and I, certainly, have thought, and felt, upon reflection of a relationship that fell apart. “Save all your money. Sell off the memories. Buy back your life,” she snarls. “You learned your lesson,” she continues. “September confession—I was your wife,” which is a word that she returns to at the end of the second verse in an attempt to reconcile with her circumstances.

“You’re not my life anymore,” Connolly laments, before singing through spitefully gritted teeth. “You’re not my wife.”

The intensity of “The Bar’s Closed” continues to grow through the chorus, yes, which includes the titular expression—“When the bar’s closed, the high road seems so high,” Connolly muses, and that intensity reaches its climax with the song’s torrential and tumultuous bridge, where the guitar distortion becomes more and more confrontational in how it cuts through the fabric of the song. “You’re kind of vacant,” Connolly sneers. “You’re kind of mean. When you undress me, I hate how I feel. Tell me it’s nothing—I was the fool,” she continues before the final, difficult line. “Tell me you miss her—that’s just your truth.”

And it is perhaps surprising, or unexpected, to find a song like this rather beautiful—the razor-sharp edges of both its lyricism and its arranging do not, at first glance, seem like they would not described that way. But there is a beauty to it. In the honesty within Connolly’s writing, certainly—because there is no easy answer in the end, and no resolution to be found, really. It is just a handful of specific fragments captured that are part of a larger narrative. And even in the harshness of it all—the dissonance of the guitars and the depiction of a marriage on the verge of collapse, there is something moving, and startlingly beautiful about the way it tumbles around in an intentional slow motion, then collapses down into a bed of shrieking noise before silence.

“The Bar’s Closed,” like a majority of Name Your Sorrow, is intensely personal and feels like it should truthfully remain private. The song is the sound of the couple arguing through the walls of the apartment, and we cannot help but press our ears to it and wish to know more, however uncomfortable it becomes.

4 - “Sexy to Someone” by Clairo

I need a reason to get out of the house…

And there are certainly years where it is something that I am probably thinking about, during the warmer months, but am simply just unable or perhaps not interested in really identifying, but there was a time when I was very adamant about identifying a song to refer to as my “summertime jam” of the year. 

And some summers, and some years, do not lend themselves to this—at least not for me, for whatever reason. Maybe it is the pop music I am consuming that year that is not lending itself to this kind of loose construct. Or maybe it’s me. And where I am at, personally, and that things feel less enjoyable or celebratory at the time. 

The last year that I can distinctly remember declaring a “summertime jam” was in 2020—maybe not the best summer for anyone, but the slithering, sensual “Cool” from Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia was the song that ticked all the boxes in terms of creating a feeling, even though at the time, we, as listeners, could do very little with that feeling outside of chase after, or long for, the kind of carefree, writhing sensation that the song beckoned us to experience. 

At what point in your life do you realize that you have, maybe, and surprisingly, had what is commonly referred to as “a glow-up.”

What did it take to get you there? And what are the circumstances with which you realize this has, in fact, occurred? What do you do with this information moving forward?

Claire Cottrill, the singer and songwriter known as Clairo, explores that question, or at least, that kind of a want, on “Sexy to Someone,” which was, without a doubt, my “summertime jam” of 2024. 

The lead single from Cottrill’s third album, the warm and inviting, Charm, “Sexy to Someone,” both is, and is not, indicative of the album’s sound as a whole—Cottrill has always had a kind of sleepier nature to her music, even dating back to her debut full-length, Immunity, from 2019—but with both its follow up, the Jack Antonoff-helmed Sling, and now on Charm, she continues to shed the glitchier, synthetic textures for more organic, often looser sounds. 

As a whole, Charm is much more energetic, or enthusiastic, of an album in comparison to its predecessor, but it also is a very relaxed, often slower, or gentler affair. “Sexy to Someone,” is one of the more exciting, exuberant moments on the record—it’s fun as hell, and for all the fun that I presume Cottrill was having while making it, she wants us to have fun, alongside her, while listening.

Much was made upon Charm’s release about how many of the songs were recorded live in the studio with little overdubs, and “Sexy to Someone” does have a very organic and “in the room” kind of feeling to it. It bounces, right from the opening note with the big, jaunty piano chords ringing out, and the crisp, genuinely interesting engineering technique on the drum kit that crisply keeps a steady rhythm behind Cottrill’s cooing and the heavy, rolling bass line that throbs throughout. 

“Sexy to Someone” is, of course, assembled in such a way that the real payoff with the song does come in just how absolutely dazzling and jubilant the chorus is. Not only is it the moment that does compel you to move your body in time to the undeniable groove, but it is where all of the elements of the song are kind of tossed up into the air—wind instruments and a wonky-sounding synth eventually arrive as well—and shimmer like confetti all the way down.

Cottrill’s lyrics can be, and often are, incredibly introspective—and she has a knack for writing herself into the songs in a way that never comes off as cloying to the listener. And there is a feeling of self-awareness and a playfulness that courses through “Sexy to Someone,” or like a smirk that she can’t quite wipe away from her face the further into the song we go. 

At what point in your life do you realize that you, maybe, and perhaps surprisingly, had what is commonly referred to as a “glow up.” 

“Sexy to Someone” is not necessarily about Cottrill giving that sort of thing consideration—not really. Though, there has to be, the core of the feeling within the song, that kind of confidence in yourself and admittedly, at least for me, that kind of confidence, regardless of how radiant of a glow from your glow-up you may have, it is hard to always sustain. The song, as it bounces along, is about a want. Or a desire. To be wanted and desired by another. And with that want, or desire, how it makes you feel.

“Sexy to someone is all I really want,” Cottrill declares in the song’s opening line—then, later on, in the woozy bridge, adds, “I want to be sexy to someone—is it too much to ask.”

That want, and desire—both of another, and it makes you feel, are central within the breezy, sing-a-long chorus. “Sexy to somebody it would help me get out!,” Cotrrill exclaims as all the instrumentation swirls around her. “I need a reason to get out of the house, and it’s just a little thing I can’t live without.”

A pop song, if it does its job well, is supposed to make you feel good as it comes to an end—not every song needs its lyrics to be analyzed meticulously for a larger or deeper meaning. A song can be just about the vibe, and often that vibe wants you to have fun, and to feel good, while Cottrill, as “Sexy to Someone” comes to an end, does not specifically indicate that there is a person who makes her feel this way, but as listeners she does not want us to be disappointed on her behalf. 

She sounds like she has had an absolute blast walking through this want, or desire, and has been benevolent enough to bring us along, with the hopes, I think, that we too may feel that chase that same kind of want, and desire, and when we look in the mirror, embrace a kind of glow up, whatever that looks like for each of us. 

3 - “Good Luck, Babe!” By Chappell Roan

With her arms out like an angel through the car sunroof…

There is, certainly, a lot going on with Kayleigh Rose Amstutz, who performs under the name, and persona, of Chappell Roan, and there is most certainly a lot going on within the dizzying single she released in the spring, “Good Luck, Babe.”

One of three new songs Amstutz has been performing in 2024, but the only one so far to receive a proper release—“The Subway” was a portion of her live show earlier in the year, and she debuted the rollicking, country-tinged “The Giver” in her performance on “Saturday Night Live”—“Good Luck, Babe,” arriving around six or seven months after the release of her debut album, The Rise and Fall of A Midwest Princess, shows, among other things, the continued growth and confidence that she has as a songwriter and performer, and the sonic ambitions and risks she’s interested in exploring with her collaborator, songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Dan Nigro.

How do you follow the slow-burning, metric, and more than the well-deserved success of Rise and Fall? You keep working. Which speaks, I think, to something good, and potentially something a little less so.

There is, of course, the line between artist and audience, which has always been a delicate balance to maintain, anecdotally speaking. And as her profile has risen, Amstutz has been outspoken about her fanbase who have crossed that line with their behavior—unreasonably demanding more from her, the artist, even when she has already given us, as listeners, so much.

How do you follow the long-gestating success of your debut? You seep working. And keep pushing yourself. 

The good that comes from that is, of course, the desire, or want, to be creative—to have these ideas within you, and wish to get them out, and cultivate them, rather than taking a break. 

Amstutz, as Roan, has become an unfairly polarizing figure within pop music—her frank candor about the toxic behavior of her fanbase, her prioritization of her mental health, and her unflinching honesty when addressing rude photographers on the red carpet, draw the ire of naysayers who believe that she is not “built,” emotionally speaking, for the kind of stardom she has achieved within a calendar year, or that Chappell Roan, as a project, was never supposed to be “this big.”

Amstutz, I would argue, can be, and should be, as “big” or as successful as she wishes to be. 

The lore around Chappell Roan is that Amstutz was signed to and then subsequently dropped by Atlantic Records, before partnering with Nigro in 2020, and the two slowly began working on what would become The Rise and Fall of A Midwest Princess, with singles gradually being released off of it up until its arrival in full in September of 2023. A charismatic live show, an opening slot on Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts tour, and high-profile festival performances helped her profile rise quickly, and even in the face of her detractors, Amstutz has opted to follow up by really refusing to slow down, and “Good Luck, Babe” shows that she still has a flare for the theatrical at the heart of her songwriting—and in the wake of her success, the stakes are certainly higher, but that also means the music itself can be much, much larger, which should be apparent before the chorus of the song even comes sliding in.

There is a sense of eccentricity and drama at the heart of a lot of Amstutz’s work—I am thinking of the big moment prior to the chorus in “Pink Pony Club,” and she and Nigro continue working from that space that is both very very accessible and well-written but also, like, genuinely interesting and unwaveringly fascinating on “Good Luck, Babe.”

The song is constructed around a kind of tension and release—the tension, in a way, is downplayed, or is at least very subtle within the verses, before “Good Luck, Babe” begins to build itself up, rather quickly, into the cacophonic peak arriving in the chorus—it’s an enormous moment within the song, one that is big enough, and bold enough, to be considered “triumphant” in a way, though the entire affect of the song is anything but. Beginning with a very 80s-inspired, wonky, warm-sounding synthesizer melody that, for whatever reason, in the way that it flutters against the steady rhythm of a drum machine, then the dissonance or at least feeling of slight unease that comes in throughout, reminds me slightly of Kate Bush, with Nigro, continuing to weave more and more elements into the fabric of the song until it reaches that point of sheer bombast.

Something that audiences, and I would hope critics as well, have been impressed by, is the way Amstutz has both slowly grown into and then written about her queer identity. There is, of course, a wider appeal to many of her songs, and the themes presented in them, but she is often writing about the utter uselessness of cis men, and both the desire and the tumultuous nature of her relationships with women. “Good Luck, Babe” is less of a “breakup song,” and much more of a song about heartbreak—and her want to let go of the memory of a woman she was involved with romantically, who ended their relationship in favor of being with someone of the opposite sex. 

The letting go, and still holding on—not to real affection for the individual, but to the frustration and anguish that comes with the demise of their romance.

“Good Luck, Babe” isn’t a vibe-based song necessarily—it does, musically, work itself up into a frenzy the further along it goes, and the lyrics are certainly secondary to that. There’s an evocative nature to them, even in the kind of sparsity they are strung along with. “It’s fine. It’s cool,” Amstutz begins, attempting to assure herself. “You can say that we are nothing, but you know the truth,” she continues, with a melancholic, accusatory tone in her lower register. “And I guess I’m the fool,” she laments. “With her arms out like an angel through the car sunroof.”

Amstrutz, while walking a line with being theatrical and playful, does slowly push the song into real, palpable emotional territory, both in the additional verse, and certainly in the visceral bridge and explosive chorus. “I’m cliche,” she exclaims at the top of the second verse. “Who cares? It’s a sexually explicit kind of love affair. And I cry—it’s not fair,” she pouts audibly. “I just need a little lovin’—I just need a little air.”

“Good Luck, Babe,” for as accessible of a pop song as it is, is operating from a place of intelligence in terms of how Amstutz makes minor adjustments to the lyrics in different places to further the narrative. In the moments before the chorus arrives, the first time around, she pleads, “I don’t wanna call it off, but you don’t wanna call it love. You only wanna be the one that I call baby.” The second time, she has, as much as she can, reconciled with the circumstances and the understanding that she wants, and deserves more. “Think I’m gonna call it off even if you call it love,” she sings. “I just wanna love someone who calls me baby.”

And it is both the chorus, and the stunning bridge to “Good Luck, Babe” that make it as impactful and memorable of a song as it is—the chorus itself is simply staggering in the towering heights it ascends to, with all of the elements spiraling around Amstutz as her voice soars into a higher register. “You can kiss a hundred boys in bars,” she scowls. “Soot another shot, try to stop the feeling. You can say it’s just the way you are. Make a new excuse—another stupid reason,” she continues before hitting the titular phrase—said both with resentment, and a kind of empowerment, then arriving at the line that is the most poignant, or resonant, in the entire song. 

“You’d have to stop the world just to stop the feeling.”

The song is really far from over, though, even in just unpacking the verses and the powerhouse chorus. It is within the bridge that song, which just skates along the edge or some dissonance throughout, takes a surprisingly ominous turn, with Amstutz, again, playing up the theatricality of the song, and of her Chappell Roan persona, delivers the brooding lyrics like they are a warning, or a threat. 

“When you wake up next to him in the middle of the night,” she howls. “With your head in your hands—you’re nothing more than his wife. And when you think about me all of those years ago—you’re standing face to face with ‘I told you so.’”

Amstutz, then, carries the final “I told you so,” into the remaining chorus of the song, letting her voice climb to a staggering place. But the song is really far from over, though, even as it seems like it is arriving at its logical conclusion because she and Nigro have one more surprise, which for me, was perhaps the most fascinating element of “Good Luck, Babe,” which is the way it gradually, and eerily, slows itself down, the instrumentation itself becoming warped, and Amstutz’s vocals arriving in a lower register, for the final “You’d have to stop the world just to stop the feeling,” before it ends, with the sound of the string accompaniment to the song hanging in the air for just a second longer as the other pieces to the song have already fallen away.

As Chappell Roan, Kayleigh Rose Amstutz can be very funny, or smirking; she can be coy, or lusty; and at times, she can tap into a kind of visceral longing. It is utterly captivating how dynamic she is as a songwriter and performer, and “Good Luck, Babe” is certainly the finest pop song of the year—operating on another level in terms of blending an infectious melody with devastating and thoughtful lyrics. 

2 - “All My Friends” by Queen of Jeans

I’m convinced without your voice, I’d float away

And it was not something that I had given much consideration to until recently, but there are different types of yearning, or longing, rather. Or maybe not different types. But different feelings created by the longing, and the yearning. 

Because it can feel okay. I am remiss to say “good,” but what it makes you feel isn’t bad, per se. But it fills you with something—a kind of comfort, in simply thinking about the object of your yearning, and wondering how their day has been, or what they are doing with their time. A warmth. And the solace that you will, in fact, talk with them, or even see them again, soon.

I am remiss to say “good.” But it is nice. Or it feels nice. 

And there is, of course, an inverse of that. Where it doesn’t feel okay. I am remiss to say “bad,” but it doesn’t feel great. It is not like the other type of yearning, or longing, that I have described. There is little comfort. There is less warmth. There is no solace. It has all been replaced, often just temporarily, with a sorrow, and a heaviness, that is hard to shake.

And I think that there is a place where these things intersect, or converge, even slightly, and what forms in the center of that convergence is a kind of wistfulness that is ever oscillating between that comfort, and that heaviness—attempting to escape the one and claw its way back to the other. 

And I think that there is a place where these things intersect, or converge, even slightly, and what forms in the center of that convergence is the kind of palpable yearning, both the kind that takes comfort, and the kind that is resigned to sigh with heaviness, present in “All My Friends,” the swooning, glistening opening track on the Queen of Jeans’ brilliant full-length All Again.

“All My Friends,” in its slow-burning structure and how it builds itself very deliberately, over the song’s run, was destined to be the first song on the album—it begins with a quick flash of a field recording, and the sound of footsteps, before Miri Devora’s gentle voice sings the first line, accompanied by the gradual strumming of her guitar. “Thought I’d call tonight—hear how you’re dealing,” she begins. “Philly is freezing, I’m trying to play. The words aren’t there yet, but somehow it’s healing—humming you a tune to round out the day.”

And for as much as “All My Friends,” as it continues to unfold, walks that line between the comforting and the somber, there is, at the core of it, something incredibly sweet and genuine to Devora’s sentiments. 

And as it continues to unfold, the rest of the band does find their way into the song, with the shimmer of Mattheson Glass’ lead guitar, weaving in and out of the strums from Devora’s rhythmic strums, with the drums rolling in and the subtle throbs of the bass coming in at literally just the right moment to punctuate the first utterance of the chorus. 

And with each verse, and return to the chorus, and moments where lyrics begin to overlap, a few more elements being introduced, or with the instruments being played with just a little more enthusiasm until the song doesn’t reach a place where it feels like it is going to burst, or blast off, or get away from the band, but just enough for its power to really resonate through you, swooning and swaying in this very slow motion, gorgeous, dreamy way before it all recedes near the end.

And there are really only two verses to “All My Friends,” delivered before the drums even come in, because the deeper we’re pulled into the song, the more we see it not getting lost in itself, exactly, but certainly wrapped up in itself, coasting along on a delicate, glistening melody. And it is the second verse, though, that is perhaps the most important to the song, and does contain one of the most sincere, and unabashedly romantic lyrics that I encountered this year.

“Which city are you in—I’ll read all about it,” Devora continues. “Alien sightings, tourist spots on the bay,” she adds in this conversation with the off-stage object of her longing and affection before arriving at the line that hits the hardest in terms of its earnestness and does really cause the song to truly kick in. “No one sees me like you see me, and I’m convinced, without your voice, I’d float away.”

A majority of the song swirls around the repetition of the titular friends, as Devora sings “All my friends around me,” then she does slowly begin to add to that, to reveal the real sentiment of the song. “I got all my friends around me—all my friends around me, but I’m not home,” she continues as the music builds. 

Devora, then overlaps her lyrics, creating a cyclical tumbling, the closer we get to the real conceit, or reveal, within the song’s sentiments—and it is in this portion of “All My Friends” where the swaying back and forth between both kinds of longing, or the feeling that both kinds created within, is most apparent. “Let it devour me,” she sings while everything is swelling around her. “Moving through the spaces I can’t own,” before arriving at the tenderness of the declaration near the conclusion.

“All my friends around but I’m not home, ’til I’m alone with you.”

The song ends with the first verse repeated again, and the reintroduction of the field-recorded audio—in listening closely, you can hear an overhead announcement about a flight boarding, and the background noise itself of a bustling airport, while playing a small role in “All My Friends,” does play a pivotal role in the song’s brief epilogue.

In this depiction of longing, and yearning, and the space that exists between when it feels okay, or when it is a little less so, “All My Friends” also depicts a kind of hushed and gentle intimacy between two people, which, even in the slow motion beauty the song conjures in the natural rise and fall of its arranging, is perhaps the most gorgeous element of all—a small, impactful reminder of why the longing, or yearning, is there in the first place. 

1 - “22” / “Hammer” by Hana Vu

In the car, I scream so loud because I don’t exist no more…

And perhaps you are like me, as a listener. You are attracted to the melancholy. To the somber. To the dark. You can appreciate music that is inherently “vibe based,” and much less focused on lyricism, or a kind of personal narrative, but it is, of course, a thoughtful, introspective, and often just really fucking sad song that you are drawn to.

And perhaps you are like me, as a listener. Where you find yourself in places where you potentially should not be, and certainly should not be looking, but what I have come to understand, more and more, is that I am often trying to catch glimpses, or reflections of myself in the songs that I listen to—most certainly the songs that have resonated with me and stayed with me as we arrive at year’s end.

Those glimpses, or reflections, are, perhaps unsurprisingly, extremely unflattering.

You see the less unsavory, or the more difficult to love parts of yourself in someone else, and it makes you, if you are like me, anyway, feel slightly less alone in what you sit with. 

I remember the first time I felt “old.” And it seems absolutely preposterous now, because it would have been when I was in my very early 20s—maybe even before I was 21. But certainly around this time—the time in our lives, or at least in mine, when you experience a lot of growth and change. Some of it, certainly, for the better. It is how we do ultimately mature, or end up becoming ourselves. But there is often discomfort to it. We maybe do not fight it, kicking and screaming. But we, or at least I did not, embrace it wholeheartedly. It is a strange or maybe surreal thing to give consideration to. The way we keep moving through time. And what we wish to continue holding onto from versions of our past selves. And what we are often asked to, or forced to, eventually let go of.

Hana Vu is already moving further away from the version of herself that wrote “22.” She was, of course, that age when she penned the song—placed within the first half of her blistering, bombastic sophomore album, Romanticism, but it all takes time. The song is written. The song is recorded. The music is released. Vu steps out into the world to perform it. She is no longer that age. But she has found a way to remain connected to this moment in time—this moment that is less of a convergence, and more of a separation, kind of torn, or at least trapped, in between who we were and maybe still wish to be, and what is to come and the expectations that come with that.

“22,” is, like a lot of the songs on Romanticism, written in such a way that indicates it, as a song, knows exactly what it is doing, and how to do it, with a preternatural kind of grace and intelligence. It is deliberate in how it moves forward, tumbling really, in a beautiful kind of dream-like slow motion, before it works itself up to a cathartic, explosive torrent, then finds its way back. It’s well crafted—the instrumentation is pristine and meticulous in how it sounds, and structurally, in following a traditional verse/chorus/verse path, Vu and her collaborator, producer Jackson Phillips, have not made songs that exactly disguise just how bleak the lyrics are, but it helps. It helps that the infectious melody, within the chorus, is something that stays with you—and it helps that the way the song does eventually reach the point of ascent, makes it so accessible, and that the lyrics, themselves, are beautiful and evocative, and with seemingly little effort at all, grab ahold of a very visceral, very real feeling.

There is a sentimentality, and kind of beautiful, woozy feeling that “22” opens with. Slow, grand guitar strums that eventually give way to the introduction of the crisp percussion and the plunked-out, throbbing bass line, and then the glacial, glistening propulsion forward to the point of intensity where everything soars.

“I’m at the movies, and they’re playing our story,” Vu begins, wistfully, in her genuinely unique vocal range. “It’s black and white, and I can’t stop watching,” she continues. “And at the bar, they’re playing our song. It sounds like summer, and white guitars.”

“22,” yes, is about the space between being young, and the slow acceptance that adulthood awaits for you, but it is also about a terrible longing. Maybe for someone, certainly. But more about a feeling, and wishing to hold onto that feeling, or a fragment in time, for just a little bit longer.

“I’m at the house that we grew up in—it falls down without you here,” Vu continues in the second verse, before the urgency, and desperation of “22” startlingly grows. “And in the car, I scream so loud because I don’t exist no more.”

And there is this immediacy, emotionally, that Vu returns to, altering the lyrics slightly the second time she arrives at them. “I don’t wanna go anywhere, anymore,” she sings each time. “I don’t wanna see anything, anything,” she adds, before making one lyrical adjustment later on. 

“I don’t wanna be anything, anything.”

“22” does, in fact, explode in a torrential burst, wordlessly, during an instrumental break, where the aggressive strums of the acoustic guitar, pummeling hits of the drum kit, and the thudding bass notes, all come slamming down over and over in succession, with a searing, buzzing lead guitar melody skittering above it all, before the epilogue of the song arrives. 

And there is no resolve, really, for Vu, as the song ends. Just a wish, or a plea, and a realization. “I’m just getting old. I’m just 22,” she confesses. “I just want to hold on to you.”

And in that plea, and realization, we are left feeling like, yes, of course, you do have to accept as best as you are able or as much as you can the convergence of time and life, and that we are all moving forward regardless of if we wish to be, or not, but we we do not know, as listeners, how much, if at all, she is able to hold on. 

But it is this kind of palpable feeling of longing, and of potential loss, and of perhaps losing control within yourself, that you do, at least if you are me, catch those unflattering glimpses or reflections of yourself in. It isn’t right, or wrong. And it offers no easy answer. Just a moment of quiet, or solace, much larger and more difficult to understand or potentially see the way out of with any real clarity or grace.

*

I don’t wanna be here, but I do…

And, perhaps, you are like me, as a listener. You are attracted to the melancholy and the somber. To the dark. You can and perhaps often do appreciate music that is inherently more “vibe based,” and is much less concerned with lyricism or a personal narrative, but it is, at the end of the day, the thoughtful, and the introspective, and often just the really fucking sad songs you are most drawn to.

Perhaps you are like me. Maybe more so than you realize. As a listener. Or as an individual. You find yourself in places where you potentially should not be, and should not even be looking, but you, like, I, are often trying to catch glimpses or reflections of yourself in the music you listen to—specifically in the songs that have resonated the most, and have stayed with you as the year comes to an end.

The glimpses and reflections you catch, of course, are unflattering. 

The thing about Hana Vu’s Romanticism is that it is both accessible and not. Musically, for as harsh or rough around the edges as it can become, I am remiss to say that it is a collection of songs that is “easy on the ears,” but the album’s arranging, in almost every song, does maintain a kind of pop sensibility that is admirable; while there are myriad other elements that make it not “inaccessible,” but can keep a listener at arm’s length, potentially, or make it a little harder to find a way into. 

In terms of just how deliberate and calculated it is in assembly, “Hammer,” the album’s second track, is one of its most listener-friendly—following not only the “verse/chorus/verse” structure as it unfolds, but also a kind of “quiet/loud/quiet” dynamism in the way it continues to shift in intensity and build throughout. It is catchy—there is really no way to ignore that fact. And it is perhaps because of how dressed up and charmingly it is presented to us, it took a number of close listens before the severity and unflinching honesty of Vu’s lyrics struck me in the way they are intended to.

It is both easy, and not, to talk about the flimsy relationship I have with my own mortality. It’s easy, I guess, because it is something that is often on my mind, and something that I did not discuss with anyone for a number of years—if anything, maybe easy is the incorrect word. If anything, there is a kind of quiet relief that comes with the revelation.

It is not easy because it is a subject that does make a lot of people uncomfortable, or nervous. Or scared. And in your revelation, you may not be met with the kind of reaction, or response, that you wish for. 

It’s hard to say what the trouble is, you see. And it can be difficult, and if not difficult, sometimes it seems impossible to articulate what it feels like in these moments, when it all feels like entirely too much. 

I don’t wanna be here. But I do.

“Hammer,” like the rest of Romanticism, boasts a kind of impressive production work—there is a warmth or an inviting quality to it, but it is very, very meticulous in how the strums of the acoustic guitar glisten just right, and how the drums sound just crisp enough while keeping the quickly paced rhythm underneath Vu’s impressive vocal range, and how the bass, like it does elsewhere on the album, comes in thick, rolling waves, and how here, on “Hammer,” there are so many layers of guitar piled on top of one another the further into the song we get, but to punctuate, and emphasize, within the first verse still, this extra shimmery layer of guitar flickers in—almost like a mandolin, but not quite, giving the song, before it, like “22,” reaches is cacophonic peak, a brief ornate feeling.

Along with that “quiet/loud/quiet” kind of assemblage, Vu plays with a tension and release—“Hammer” never has a chance to simmer, or smolder, and is just pushed forward with a kind of relentlessness, though there are these small moments where a lot of the accompaniments drop out and Vu is surrounded by just different layers of oscillating guitar strums, and when the bass thuds back in, and the drum sticks hit the snare and cymbals, there is this jolt that courses through the song’s atmosphere and the briefest feeling of an exhalation.

And it is, of course, Vu’s lyrics, and the way she delivers them, really leaning into a kind of theatricality that makes “Hammer” as cathartically impactful as it winds up being.

In a much lower, even calmer tone, she begins, “It’s been a long day—take off your shoes,” before things become more emergent. “It’s been a hard year—I’m talking to you.”

And there are, of course, a number of lyrics throughout “Hammer” that resonated the longer I spent unpacking the song, but it is a single lyric in the first verse that is both the conceit of the song as a whole but the one that hit home the hardest. 

“Are we gonna make it—cause I have to. I don’t wanna be here, but I do.”

And if you are like me, then perhaps you have also been treading water for longer than you wish to admit. 

And if that is the case for you, as it is for me, then you understand that it can be humbling, or hard, to be truthful about where you are at, or how you are feeling, or where to begin in looking for help. Or even what kind of help to seek out.

“And I called the doctor, and he said there’s nothing wrong,” Vu continues. “And I called the pastor, and he said that love is strong. And there is no answer, but I want one anyway. And I swing the hammer just as hard as I can take.”

As she does, subtly, within “22,” with the small lyrical change within lines that are otherwise repeated to emphasize, Vu makes no effort to mask the desperation she's feeling in one of the moments that takes place later in the song, when the instrumentation, save for the guitars, drops out. “And I called the doctor, and I said my heart is wrong,” Vu howls this time. “And I called the pastor, and I said I can’t go on. And there is no answer, and I just can’t be saved. And I swing the hammer just as hard the other way.”

And because “Hammer” is a song that is decorated with the trappings of accessibility, there are a number of shout-a-long moments that occur throughout, including the short chorus, which features another one of the lines that is less of a conceit to the song, as a whole, but another one that was extremely impactful. “It’s hard to say what the trouble is,” Vu explains. “I’ll run away, ’til it’s all behind me.”

I don’t wanna be here, but I do.

It’s hard to say what the trouble is. Because sometimes, we don’t know. It is there, and we try, as best as we are able, to outrun it. 

But we often are not really able to. We keep treading water. We keep thinking about what, or in many cases, who specifically keeps us upright and keeps us here.

I find that, the longer I write about music, the more I return to specific analytical phrases—and when a song, or an album, is of a more personal nature, as it ends, something I look for, or specifically wish to write about, is if it offers up answers, easy or otherwise, or if it asks more questions of us. It is obvious, or apparent, in “Hammer” when Vu howls, “There is no answer, and I just can’t be saved” in the song’s second half. The best she can offer, and the best any of us can do, really, is to keep running and try to stay ahead of the trouble. 

We keep treading water. We stay, even though we might not wish to.