Happy Saturday! After a long week of work, I am glad to have a day off where I managed to sneak in a quick visit to the local record store. I bought four albums which I will tell you all about…when I randomly roll them. When will this happen? How long, dear readers, must you wait? There is no way to know. That’s how random works.
And on that note, here’s today’s selection.
Disc 1687 is…ROACH
Artist: Miya Folick
Year of Release: 2023
What’s up with the Cover? Some sort of candid shot of Miya in an outfit that feels like it might be athleisure or maybe a very comfy clubbing outfit.
How I Came To Know It: I was already a fan because of Folick’s 2018 release, “Premonitions” (reviewed back at Disc 1608). This was me checking out her new release. Also, I already knew six of these songs from her 2022 EP, “2007”.
I admit to some annoyance on that front. Putting out half the album a year early as an EP resulted in me having to buy half those songs twice. This is becoming a lot more common these days. It isn’t as bad as the early oughts, when artists would put a new song on their Greatest Hits package to make you buy it, but it is a close second. Please stop this.
How It Stacks Up: I have two full-length Folick albums (I’m dumping the EP since all the tunes appear again here. Argh). Of the two, it is very hard to choose as they are both great, but I’m going to give the edge to “ROACH”.
Rating: 4 stars
Why some pop artists achieve radio fame and others toil in obscurity is a mystery that routinely irks me. It is particularly irksome when I hear a record as consistently good as “ROACH”. Not just because it is a good record, but also because it is catchy. The kids would love this stuff, if only they knew it exists.
The music is a mix of traditional guitar/bass/drum action and synthesizer electronica with Folick’s vocals being the bridge between the different approaches. Both work equally well with her singing. She has a big range, and can evoke girlish, dance-club fun equally well as longing and emotional depth. Sometimes it is both these things at once.
Unlike a lot of vacuous pop music that dominates the airwaves, Folick has something to say. These songs are a window into the life of a woman in her early thirties, coming to terms with a complicated world. Young enough to still remember the breathless wonder of immortality, old enough to finally understand that you no longer are. Worse, that you never were.
“ROACH” explores this world from a lot of facets. Reflections on family and the traits we inherit (“Mommy”), dating a jackass who preys on the growing insecurities of aging (“Nothing to See”) and more than a few outright references to drug and alcohol abuse to salve the various shitty things that the world’s going to throw in your path.
This is a record reflecting on unhealthy levels of self-harm, and the way damaged people tend to pass that damage along.
On, “Nothing to See” the narrator is full of self-loathing as she tries to be what her partner expects her to be, instead of being happy. The imagery is simple but possesses an undercurrent of darkness:
“I know you've been
talking to girls on the internet
She's only nineteen and I can't compete with that
I've been trying to change the way I look so you like what you see
I've been losing weight so I can wear these Dolls Kill jeans”
Set against a chorus refrain of “why did I do that?” Folick tries to parse out why you can know behaviour is harmful, and yet do it anyway.
Throughout all this darkness, you see a young woman grappling with how to be a better person, to both herself and others. On “2007” she admits fears and doubt, but for the most part the song is a self-motivational anthem, slow and moody but with an undercurrent of hope:
“I don't wanna be
afraid of aging or gaining weight
I want to take up space
I wanna get up real early and stay up late
I wanna smile real big
I wanna fucking live”
And on “Drugs or People” she warns away anyone that might see her descend again into bad habits:
“You think you can
handle me
But baby you can't
You think you won't lose your mind
You've already lost half
Don't make me prove it to you
I'm trying not to use
Drugs or people”
I like that this song shows the narrator is not just pushing this new person away because she's concerned about her own propensity to relapse into bad decisions, but because she doesn't want to risk hurting others in the process.
For all the hard conversations and grim battles with life’s challenges, “ROACH” is ultimately a hopeful record. A safe place to be damaged, confident that tomorrow you are going to wake up a little less so.
Folick wraps all these hard ideas in some wonderful and cleverly composed pop songs. You are going to sing along, bob your head, and smile, and within that safe space the music provides, get a little philosophical. It’s a mix of fun, cathartic and intellectually stimulating, and one of the best records 2023.
Best tracks: Oh God, Bad Thing, Nothing to See, Drugs or People, 2007, Ordinary
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