Beautiful Lies, Birdy

Birdy first came on my radar when her song "Just a Game" was released on the movie soundtrack for the first Hunger Games movie-- it was hauntingly beautiful in lyricism, vocals, and instrumentation. I've followed Birdy from a distance across the years since and she's simply gotten better with time; Beautiful Lies is a culmination of all the things that make Birdy a dynamic and powerful musical artist.

Beautiful Lies feels like it would fit in as the soundtrack to all the most beautifully human moments-- a sunrise, a cabin while it snows, a drive through nature. The most comparable artist to Birdy is probably Adele, and Birdy absolutely deserves the same amount of recognition that Adele gets.

Stand-out tracks: "Keeping Your Head Up" "Take My Heart"

My favorites: "Deep End" "Wild Horses""Words"

Each song on Beautiful Lies has expertly crafted; from the the soft yet powerful vocals to the lilting pianos and soft-rock drums. The album opens with Florence+The Machine-esque "Growing Pains" and is closely followed by one of the many ethereal piano ballads on the album with "Shadow." "Deep End," "Lost It All," and "Silhouette" are powerful and heart-wrenching, dominantly steered by piano and Birdy's soft, reverberating voice singing lyrics like "don't want to find I've lost it all/too scared to have no one to call/so can we just pretend/that we're not falling into the deep end?" and "I may be on my knees, but I still believe/these broken wings will soar." "Take My Heart" is a chilling, gorgeous lilting ballad illustrating falling back into a relationship that already broke you once. "Keeping Your Head Up" and "Lifted" are powerful and hopeful; they draw the listener out of the melancholy of some of the other tracks with more of a folk-pop sound. "Hear You Calling" almost has an ABBA-type sound, which surprisingly fits in with the classic sound of the full album. "Words" and "Save Yourself" adds some substance to the classic piano ballad with haunting echoing vocals and pulsing rhythm synths that make these songs infinitely more expansive than they would be if left in their pared-back forms.

Altogether, Beautiful Lies is stunning work of art.

AM I OBSESSED?

RATING:

FULLY OBSESSED

FOUR, One Direction

FOUR is One Direction at their finest; they were well-established as global superstars, they were still recording and performing as a full five-person group, and they'd matured to the point that their music was really substantial while still keeping the fun that gave them their early hits.

FOUR is my personal favorite One Direction album, and finding my CD of it in my car the other day prompted me to make this album my first 1D album listened to during this project.

Stand-out tracks: "Where Do Broken Hearts Go" "Night Changes"

My favorites: "Stockholm Syndrome" "Fool's Gold""Fireproof"

I'll be honest, I feel like One Direction achieved a skipless album with FOUR. It's perfectly balanced ballads like "Night Changes" and "Fool's Gold" and uptempo powerhouses like "No Control" and "Stockholm Syndrome." There's also no denying that the vocal talent of each and every member of One Direction is superb, which really shines though on tracks like "Ready to Run" and "Fireproof".

FOUR feels cozy on songs like "18," "Fireproof," and "Spaces" but it also feels like a stadium concert in summer air on songs like "Steal My Girl," "Where Do Broken Hearts Go," "No Control," and "Clouds." It's easy listening at it's absolute finest.

AM I OBSESSED?

RATING:

FULLY OBSESSED

i used to think i could fly, Tate McRae

Tate McRae is best known for social media success of sassy, poppy TikTok hits like"you broke me first" and "she's all i wanna be." i used to think i could fly is her first full-length album and it's pretty much exactly what you would expect from her-- both in a good way and a not-so-good way.

i used to think i could fly is perfectly cheeky, but it's not exactly bold. Tate McRae has unique, raspy vocal talent and she performs the heck out of her songs, but pre-released"she's all i wanna be" is really the only truly great song on this album. I would come back to i used to think i could fly to learn these songs to sing them at a concert because I think they would translate extremely well to a sassy pop concert, but in the context of an album, they all kind of blend together.

Stand-out tracks: "she's all i wanna be" "what's your problem?"

My favorites: "feel like shit" "go away"

"don't come back" is trappy and smooth and holds up well as the first track of the album following the intro. "what's your problem?" is everything you want from a scream-sing angry break-up song. "she's all i wanna be" is the ultimate dance-around-your-room teenage crush song-- it's got fun guitars and a dancey vocal line that I'm sure comes across really well when performed thanks to Tate's dance background. "feel like shit" is how Tate McRae takes on processing heartbreak-- with a little more angst and self-deprecation than similar artists like Olivia Rodrigo. "go away" has a thrumming bass line that actually does a nice job of illustrating the pining that the lyrics and raw vocals of this song portray too.

i used to think i could fly is a solid debut album that is just enough to keep the wheels turning on Tate McRae's career, but just falls short of catapulting her to superstardom.

AM I OBSESSED?

RATING:

OBSESSED WITH SOME TRACKS