Today I went on a walk. I don’t have my license yet, so my only method of transpiration is walking. And Uber. But I’m a cheap bimbo. So, I walked all over town from my house to Salem, New Hampshire’s very own Salvation Army. They have a half off sale every Wednesday! But that’s beside the point of this. On that walk to the thrift store, I listened to the voice inside my head and put on ‘Melodrama.’ I have soaked up this album repetitively since it’s release to the point where that voice inside my head has become you. I woke up this morning and the first thing that ran through my mind was the chorus of your song Sober.’
As your sophomore album made it’s way through my headphones into my mind, I found myself teleported somewhere only your music takes me. A “Perfect Place,” one might even call it. I wasn’t walking around my hometown anymore. I was walking through a field filled with pastel flower which blossomed the moment my eyes met them. The silent bouquets I was praising looked up at a lilac sky. The type of sky that swallows us right when the sun is about to disappear for the night. Unlike Earth, instead of making it’s transition into nighttime, it’s like this forever. The aura of this dreamland is soft, and delicate, and enchanting. I can stare right back at the sun right before me, without my eyes becoming blinded. The sun sits half covered behind mountains that illuminate the horizon.
In this Melodramatic Dimension, my body’s looking at and my feet are walking towards my future. With your music in the background of my life, there’s no reason to turn around and see what’s behind me; but when I do there’s a tangible darkness. There’s heartbreak, and loneliness, confusion, and insecurity. My lungs inhale and exhale all of these feeling that fill the air. These emotions are scattered across the sky in an almost pitch black/ indigo shade. Instead of thriving flowers that gleam with optimism, there are empty fields. Your lyrics assure me that what my eyes are admiring behind me is the past.
Although, the way you deliver each of your lyrics assure me that what I’m seeing isn’t as bad as it’s made out to be. What I’m observing may be dark, and it might feel lonely, but what it is is the past. There’s a certain beauty to it that isn’t as obvious as what I see what I walk ahead towards my future. When I look behind me, what exists is the reason I can appreciate where I am now and all that is to come. The past, the present, and the future create a spectrum that I have learned to celebrate. I cry, I sing, I appreciate, and I party; all with ‘Melodrama’ on repeat.
The chilling piano that welcomes the pre-chorus of ‘Green Light.’ The hypotonic intro in 'Sober’ that wraps around the entirety of the song like a ribbon made of silk. The way you make “awesome” sound like a word I want to store my vocabulary forever, instead of cringe at, in 'Homemade Dynamite.’ The way you sing 'Liability,’ like it was written about my patterns of thought. The way you say “generation” in 'Loveless’ that brings me a unique sense of comfort and belonging. The “ch ch” in 'Perfect Places,’ that I am convinced you placed strategically to give us a moment to collect ourselves, right before the mystic intensity of the chorus hits our souls.
How you serve us an entree of a song, then continue to serve us nostalgia for dessert as you revisit it with a reprise later on in the album. The sexy flute that fills the vacant spaces in the chorus of 'Homemade Dynamite.’ The guitar at the end of 'The Louvre’ that puts me in a trance. The eerie noise in the beginning of 'Hard Feelings.’ The almost trap music influence I sense during the breakdown of 'Sober II.’ The other various sounds throughout 'Melodrama’ which I cannot begin to describe. The exact same goes for the way they resonate inside of me.
Sometimes I find myself frustrated because I don’t posses the natural ability to express how I feel with music. Only to be reminded that artists like you exist and unknowingly do that for me. In eleven songs and forty minutes you executed emotion that was worth the wait since the release of 'Pure Heroine.’ During that wait, I let PH™ work the same magic to my life that 'Melodrama’ is doing as I write this. You released your first album during my freshman year of high school. This year, I turned 18, graduated high school, and made brand new realizations about of myself, my life, and the world. All with your music in the back of my head. This record deserves a place in The Louvre. It might be placed it the back, but who cares, still The Louvre.
