Sounds From My Wits End: Anthologies And Espressos
So, here’s the breakdown–April was a big month for pop girlies and indie rock.
Welcome to my end-of-month post! Going forward, these will usually be paywalled, but I decided to give the people the first one as a free preview. Without further ado, here’s the breakdown–this month was packed with plenty of solid sound. Here are ten of my favorite new (and old with a new lease on life) releases I listened to this month.
“On & On & On” by Maggie Rogers
You may know Maggie Rogers from the viral video in which Grammy winner Pharrell Williams offers praise on her college music assignment at NYU, which later became her breakout hit “Alaska.” Now at 30, Rogers’ indie pop is sonically simpler, but more contemplative than ever.
Her latest record, “Don’t Forget Me,” is softer, often string driven, and calls back to the soft rock of the early aughts and late 90s. “On & On & On” particularly reminds me of the angst and staying power of Natalie Imbruglia’s 1997 “Torn,” but with a sharper edge–Rogers warns her ex to think twice before crawling back. The refrain of this song being that the song itself will always be a reminder of the situation is just as effective as a number of other female revenge anthems, including the legendary Fleetwood Mac track “Silver Springs.”
The singer attended Harvard Divinity School from 2021-2022 (right across the Charles River from me) where she graduated with a master's degree in religion and public life. She has stated that this degree initially interested her due to its focus on the intersections of spirituality, religion, and pop culture. This degree’s impact is certainly present on this track, in which Rogers recognizes that her place as a popular music artist will cement her in her ex lovers and friends’ lives forever, regardless of whether she ever decides to call him back.
“Espresso” by Sabrina Carpenter
Sabrina Carpenter is back with another easy-breezy feel good pop track. The Disney Channel star turned Eras Tour opener has had a huge year. Between the release of her album “Emails I Can’t Send” and the success of her singles “Feather” and “Nonsense,” the singer has proven a newfound mature sincerity and confidence.
“Espresso” was accompanied by an old Hollywood style music video and Coachella performance, and rapidly climbed to number 7 on the Billboard Charts. Carpenter’s y2k R&B infused pop is striking an important niche right now–she’s an artist who does not take herself too seriously. The easy listening of “Espresso” is perfect for a springtime drive with the windows down, and reminded me of Cobie Caillat’s early work. While her image is incredibly cohesive, and several of her songs (notably “because i liked a boy”) have sharply written lyrics about the price of coming of fame on the internet, she is not afraid to have a laugh with her own critics.
Notably, her music video for “Feather” was partially filmed in a Catholic Church in Brooklyn, and its subject matter ruffled feathers. Her response to the controversy? “Jesus was a Carpenter.” And months later, she wore this quote printed on a t- shirt at her Coachella debut. Talk about her “give-a-f*cks” taking a vacation, right?
“Mary Boone” by Vampire Weekend
Indie rock legends Vampire Weekend dropped their latest album “Only God Was Above Us” this month. The group particularly informed the millennial generation, with wordy hits like “Campus” “Oxford Comma” and “A Punk” introducing a new level of cultural literacy to indie music gone mainstream. The band’s members all met while studying at Columbia University, which gave way to the layered cultural nuance of their songwriting and the unique production that goes into their work. Their blend of genres and subject matter has long set them apart from their contemporaries.
On “Mary Boone,” the combination of carefully placed synths and choral arrangements layered with Afrobeats and conga drums drives the message of the song home. The track appears to tell a wider version of frontman Ezra Koenig’s own personal story–a tale of a young ambitious person striving to make a name for themselves in New York City, coming from humble beginnings in the boroughs outside of Manhattan or the commuter suburbs of northern New Jersey.
The titular Mary Boone is a real-life famous art dealer known for bringing artists like Jean Michel-Basquiat to the forefront via her eponymous gallery. Boone was the child of Egyptian immigrants and was raised in a small town in Pennsylvania before working her way into the New York elite. And then, in a tale as old as time, she committed tax fraud.
Koenig stated that the track reads like a plea to the Mary Boones of the world, to lend a helping hand to young musicians and artists looking to follow in their footsteps. At the same time, the narrator is also acknowledging that even their idols are often flawed or immoral. This song hit the spot for me this month, as a young journalist at her wit’s end working her way through Los Angeles (plus, I also grew up in Jersey).
“Drunk In My Mind” by Benson Boone
Boone’s nostalgic soul-pop has cultivated a fast and vast audience. His debut album “Fireworks and Rollerblades” is full of songs waiting to become viral hits. Among them, in my humble opinion, is the metaphorical “Drunk In My Mind.” This track details the narrator getting to know someone and quickly starting to fall for them, only to realize that they were too good to be true. The funky bass line and quickly delivered lyrics “Was it imaginary?/Like we never danced in the dark, never kissed in the park/When I gave you my heart, you just ripped it wide open/You must be jokin' from takin' it slowly/To crashing full speed into hopelessly broken” make the track an album standout.
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21 year-old Benson Boone got his start after a brief stint on ABC’s “American Idol.” After accidentally discovering his singing talent for a high school battle-of-the-bands competition, the singer advanced to the top 24 of “American Idol” before ultimately withdrawing to continue working on original music.
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His audition coupled with his whopping 6.9 million TikTok followers (where he initially began teasing his music) attracted the attention of Imagine Dragons frontman Dan Reynolds. Reynolds’ label, Night Street Records (owned by Warner Records) offered him a deal. While his first single “Ghost Town” dropped in 2021, you’d probably recognize his name from his 2024 single “Beautiful Things”, which has soundtracked thousands of TikTok videos of users sharing their appreciation for the simple things in life.
“Good Luck Babe!” by Chappell Roan
This 80s art pop track has dominated the for-you page of TikTok this month. Chappell Roan (who takes her stage name after her late grandfather’s favorite song) has experienced a meteoric rise after opening part of Olivia Rodrigo’s “GUTS” world tour, following the release of her debut album “The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess.”
“Good Luck Babe!” channels the 80s retro synth pop of Cyndi Lauper and Kate Bush. Roan is among the first artists to revive this style of music following the resurgence of Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” with the 2022 season of “Stranger Things.” The song is another you’ll-never-forget-about-me anthem, this time for the gays. Taylor Swift has “I Bet You Think About Me,” Stevie Nicks has “Silver Springs,” and Roan has “Good Luck Babe!” for an ex that was not willing to love her in public, an experience often associated with queer people who haven’t come to terms with their identity. Roan belts You’ll have to stop the world just to stop the feeling,” a simple yet powerful statement.
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The Missouri native has quickly made a name for herself within the LGBTQ+ community and beyond, both for her lyrics that describe accepting her queer identity and finding support. Roan has also described her previous relationships with men prior to coming out, and thus has songs that carry narratives for any listeners to relate to, regardless of gender or sexuality. She also dresses in intricate and retro style drag makeup and outfits for every performance to further connect with her audience.
“Dance Before We Walk” by August Moon
Who is August Moon? Another fictional band I fear. Similar to the original soundtrack of “Daisy Jones & The Six,” August Moon will soon soundtrack the film “The Idea Of You,” and is poised to assert a similar chart dominance. August Moon is led by actor Nicholas Galitzine, who stars in the movie as Hayes Campbell, the boyband’s unofficial leader.
“The Idea Of You” is an adaptation of Robinne Lee’s novel of the same name, and centers around a 40-year-old divorcee’s tryst with a popular male singer in his 20s. Anne Hathaway is set to play said divorcee, and the cast alone has audiences waiting with bated breath for its Amazon Prime release.
August Moon is already being compared to real life boy band One Direction (composed of Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Louis Tomlinson, and Liam Payne). The musical stylings of “Dance Before We Walk” scream 2010s pop, and for my fellow elder Gen Z listeners, this is because Carl Falk co-wrote it. The Swedish songwriter is one of the masterminds behind One Direction and 5 Seconds of Summer’s various hits.
“All Falls Down” by Lizzy McAlpine
Singer-songwriter Lizzy McAlpine dropped her third album “Older” this month, and “All Falls Down” is arguably the thesis of the subject matter. The soft jazzy tune allows for McAlpine’s delivery to feel like she is sighing out her worries to a friend over Sunday morning coffee.
McAlpine, who attended Boston’s Berklee College of Music, hit new heights when her track “ceilings” went viral on TikTok. Unlike many of her fellow Gen Z artists, McAlpine has been entirely transparent about the double edged sword of internet fame. This track reflects her spike in visibility at 22 with “ceilings”, which led to sold out shows and thousands of followers, but left her with a feeling of being misunderstood by the time she hit 23.
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“Twenty-two was a panic attack/I can't stop the time from moving and I can never gеt it back” is a line that thousands of listeners can relate to, given that most people graduate college and take the first steps into their adult lives at this age. Famous singer or not, 22 really can be a panic attack. This song is perfect for anyone about to have their final summer before growing up.
“Alley Rose” by Conan Gray
Gray first hit the scene as an indie pop darling for “Maniac” on his 2020 album “Kid Krow.” Ever since, Gray’s artistry continues to evolve, and now falls into a more vintage 70s psychedelia meets 80s glam rock.
On his new album “Found Heaven,” “Alley Rose” is a show stopper. Queen is clearly an influence, with Gray appearing to reflect on a fleeting relationship that was as deep as it was quick, and how he wishes he could have experienced more in life with this person.
Recently, Gray revealed the name for this track was initially meant to be “Abbey Road,” as he came up with the concept when he paid the famous site of The Beatles’ album cover a visit and wished the song’s subject was there to see it with him. Plus, he alleges that the song’s subject first kissed him in an alley. Clearly, he went to the Taylor Swift school of easter eggs. If you love London memorabilia and classic rock, this song is for you.
“Peter” by Taylor Swift
After listening to “The Tortured Poets Department” practically on loop since its release, I find myself pulled towards a number of tracks, but “Peter” really resonates. The Aaron Dessner collaboration is a simple yet gut wrenching piano driven ballad about the loss of youth and childlike wonder. It is sung in a poetic rhythm that feels akin to Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter, and mourns the loss of a potentially great love.
“Peter losing Wendy” in “Cardigan” on “folklore” may pertain to the same subject, who could not find it in himself to settle down and grow up. Men with commitment issues have long been colloquially referred to as having “Peter Pan syndrome,” and of course, the classic J.M. Barrie story is set in London, where Swift’s two most recent exes (Joe Alwyn and Matty Healy) both live.
High profile ex easter eggs aside, this track takes Swift down to size with a deeply relatable message. In a world full of distractions and barriers, it is becoming increasingly difficult for young love to survive into adulthood, much like Peter Pan himself. Notable lyrics include, “The goddess of timing once found us beguiling” and repeating in a frenzied state “you said you were gonna grow up, and you were gonna come find me.”
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This all comes before “I won't confess that I waited, but I let the lamp burn/As the men masqueraded, I hoped you'd return/With your feet on the ground, tell me all that you'd learned/'Cause love's never lost when perspective is earned.” Pure poetry, as the album’s title would suggest.
“The Best of Me” by The Starting Line
Why is a song from 2002 on this list? Because Taylor Swift brought it up. The Starting Line dropped their hit “The Best of Me” in the early aughts, around the same time that Swift was just breaking into the music industry herself. Decades later, in her newly released track “The Black Dog,” Swift references a certain London Boy heading to a pub of the same name post-breakup and accidentally catching him going in there because he forgot to turn off his location sharing.
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Swift references the band with “How you don't miss me/In The Black Dog/When someone plays The Starting Line and you jump up/But she's too young to know this song/That was intertwined in the magic fabric of our dreaming/Old habits die screaming.” “The Best of Me” is The Starting Line’s biggest hit, and the lyrics tell their own story that matches up perfectly with the themes present in “The Tortured Poets Department.”
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Many Swemos (Swifties and Emos, combined) feel like “The Black Dog” is an emo track in disguise, and that the Starting Line name check fits perfectly. “The Best Of Me” opens with “Tell me what you thought about when you were gone/And so alone/The worst is over/You can have the best of me/We got older/But we're still young/We never grew out of this feeling that we won't give up.” The track reflects upon an on-and-off again relationship that the narrator is hopeful will finally work out now that the couple have grown up and can understand one another better. Sound familiar?
Stay tuned for the weekly playlist, where all ten of these tracks will be featured.