growing pains
mini album review(s) except i'm just projecting
this was going to be a newsletter where I recommend a bunch of media but then I hyper-fixated on the album “these are good people” and couldn’t stop writing about it so here’s all of that (maybe i’m spiraling)
zauner’s little big league and japanese breakfast eras are distinct. there’s a raw angst and longing captured in this ↑ album’s muddy, rock-centric production and zauner’s guttural vocal style that she slowly phased out of with Psychopomp (rugged country is most reflective of her LBL era, in my opinion!). Maybe I’m (definitely!) projecting, but this album perfectly captures the mortifying ordeal of being a girl in your 20’s.
I think the best way to describe it is in comparison to another laced with crack 2013 album: pure heroine. pure heroine is the album for the “edge of youth,” touching on the idea that things are changing but the possibilities are infinite. but it captures all these things within a bubble— lorde was 16 (SIXTEEN!) when she made this album. at its core, it’s about reveling in a fleeting adolescence, expressing anxiety about all that is unknown, the loneliness that comes with being a misunderstood young person.
from ribs (but if you didn’t know that wtf is wrong with you)
My mum and dad let me stay home
It drives you crazy, getting old
…
This dream isn't feeling sweet
We're reeling through the midnight streets
And I've never felt more alone
It feels so scary, getting old
pure heroine is an album held sacred to teenage girls driving around their suburbs to avoid going home, who cry on their 18th birthday for reasons they can’t quite put a finger on, who eat ice cream in the HEB parking lot with their best friends and lament over fights with their moms and SATs and boys who don’t like them back.
from a world alone:
You're my best friend, and we're dancing in a world alone
World alone, we're all alone
I know we're not everlasting
We're a train wreck waiting to happen
One day the blood won't flow so gladly
One day we'll all get still
Get still
but “these are good people” touches on the loneliness of leaving the bubble of youth and starting to really grow up, coming to terms with the fact that things have changed and reality is coming into a sharper focus (zauner was 24 when this album came out!). this album captures the idea that the youthful angst still exists, but in a different form— now melded with more life mistakes and life experiences.
It’s for the adult girls (21+-year-old teenagers, if you will) who are wondering if they should give up their big dreams for a comfortable corporate life, who think about student debt and water bills and scrounge up cash tips to pay for pho (because it doesn’t count!).
Try to not see your failures ascending
Waitressing is a temporary thing
Oh what if when the summer it comes
And I still want to drive to your parent's house
But you live somewhere else
It’s for the adult girls who know now that they shouldn’t mix their liquors (but do it anyway), who cry on their birthdays for reasons they understand too well, who kiss the wrong people and say the wrong things, who have realized that their closest friendships have changed and there’s nothing they can really do about it. it’s for the adult girls who are still making messy dumb mistakes and fear failure and rejection and self-sabotage and fall apart more than they should (and feel guilty because they should know better!).
You watched me fall apart
I know better, and you know
But all I see still is your mouth
Packed with hooks to gut and rip me out
Just one more time
I know better and you know
But all I see still is your mouth, your mouth, your mouth
most of all, it’s for the adult girls who now understand the idea of knowing everything at 18 but nothing at 22.
