All I Ever Wanted, Kelly Clarkson

Kelly Clarkson is arguably one of the strongest powerhouse voices to grace the music world in recent years, and the best of her heavier-rock pop sound shines through on 2009's All I Ever Wanted. She struck gold a few years earlier with 2004's Breakaway and hadn't hit her poppier stride of 2011's Stronger, so it would be easy for All I Ever Wanted to get lost in the shuffle. However, in my eyes, this is Kelly Clarkson at her absolute best. Enough ballads to show off the softness and range of her voice and enough angry pop-rock music to push the power and sass of her voice to its limits.

Stand-out tracks: "My Life Would Suck Without You" "Already Gone" "Impossible"

My favorites: "If I Can't Have You" "All I Ever Wanted" "Long Shot"

The album kicks off strong with "My Life Would Suck Without You," a cheeky power pop song that is enough to catch your attention and keep you listening. The sassiness kicks into even higher gear on "I Do Not Hook Up" - this one is mostly just fun, but it would be super cathartic to scream-sing both it and it's predecessor.

"Cry" is one of the stronger ballads on this album, breaking up the power anthems nicely with soaring, crushing vocals. "All I Ever Wanted" is a darker pop sound, unrelenting in the lyrical and vocal reminder that "all I ever wanted was a simple way to get over you." If you thought "Cry" was going to be the best ballad of this album, "Already Gone" would hit you like a truck; it has that persistent, thrumming instrumental sound that pairs gorgeously with powerful vocals unique to Kelly Clarkson.

My personal favorite ever since I heard All I Ever Wanted back at 11 years old is "If I Can't Have You" - it's poppy, it's bold, it has full-bodied guitars and vocals that just make you perform it into a hairbrush - a 10/10 pop-rock song. "Impossible" toes the line between ballad and almost electronic-sounding, illustrating the co-occurring heartbreak and empowerment that comes with the end of a non-functional relationship.

Is every song on All I Ever Wanted worth listening to? Probably not. But are the songs that are worth listening to pop-rock perfection? Yes, I would say they are.

AM I OBSESSED?

RATING:

OBSESSED WITH SOME TRACKS

evermore, Taylor Swift

What better time to check off the first Taylor Swift album of this project than on evermore's birthday? I'm one of those people who believes evermore deserved all the hype and recognition that her sister album folklore got back in 2020, with the pair of albums being among her very best work. Saying that I'm a Taylor fan honestly feels like putting it lightly, so be prepared for a fully biased review of this one.

evermore is, to me, the absolute most underrated Taylor Swift album. It might be her single best-written album, and the instrumentals on this album are stunning to say the least.

Stand-out tracks: "willow" "champagne problems" "no body, no crime (feat. Haim)" "evermore (feat. Bon Iver)"

My favorites: "gold rush" "coney island (feat. The National)" "cowboy like me"

evermore starts with the simple yet ethereal coupling of guitar and pared back vocals with "willow," one of the most secretively personal love songs Taylor's ever written. "champagne problems" follows, taking the name of the most tragically heartbreaking song on a Taylor Swift album, illustrating the disintegration of a relationship just before a proposal, with one person left "standing crestfallen on the landing" with "your mom's ring in your pocket." Track 3, "gold rush", is all the glitter and excitement of being absolutely flustered and enamored by a connection with the person that everyone wants.

No matter how many times I hear otherwise, I'll always be convinced that "tolerate it" tells the story of Princess Diana, with lines like "always taking up too much space or time/you assume I'm fine, but what would you do if I/break free and leave us in ruins" and "lay the table with the fancy shit/and watch you tolerate it".

Taylor's collaboration's on this album are some of her best-- from the clever murder mystery of "no body, no crime" with Haim to the ghostly, reminiscent ballad of "coney island" with The National (this is one of my personal favorites and a song I feel is significantly underrated as one of her most stunning metaphors of comparing an abandoned carnival to looking back on past relationships). "ivy" puts a light spin on the story of the secretive haven of an affair and the excitement and fear and all encompassing infatuation that comes with it. "cowboy like me" is soft, mysterious, romantic-- it's a stunning song lyrically, instrumentally, vocally; and the lines "never wanted love/just a fancy car/now I'm waiting by the phone like I'm sitting in an airport bar/you had some tricks up your sleeve/takes one to know one/you're a cowboy like me" is maybe one of the most clever ways Taylor has ever illustrated how emotions can be unexpectedly all-encompassing. "marjorie" is a gorgeous ode to Taylor's grandmother and the reminder to "never be so kind you forget to be clever and never be so clever you forget to be kind"-- and the addition of the ghostly track of Taylor's opera-singing grandmother following the line "if I didn't know better/I'd think you were singing to me now" is simply perfect. The album closes with title-track "evermore" which features Bon Iver to round out a ghostly piano ballad illustrating the sliver of hope given by the simplest things that bring light in the darkness.

evermore is Taylor at her absolute best lyrical composition coupled with some of the most beautifully simplistic production she's ever had on an album. While folklore may have been what led us into this world of a forest of acoustics and beautiful storytelling, evermore is the album that makes you want to curl up with your cardigan by the cabin fireplace and never leave the folklorian woods. evermore is quite simply a masterpiece.

AM I OBSESSED?

RATING:

FULLY OBSESSED

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