Embedded Files
Written by Nikil Sivakumar
Following a decade of musical growth and achievement, last showcased with 2021’s In The Meantime, Alessia Cara sat down with UTalent Records and others to discuss the candid songwriting and big emotions that have helped her blend genre and feeling, shaping Love & Hyperbole, her recently released fourth LP and most personal album yet.
From "Scars To Your Beautiful" to "Out Of Love," Alessia Cara's songs have shaped the adolescent soundtrack of the 2010s. Those albums resounded because of their relatable, often cynical themes: tiresome parties, long-lost love, brushing off the "cool kids." Cara's newest effort, Love & Hyperbole, comes to terms with the disdain and hurt of those teenage years, opting for fusions of jazz, pop rock, and soft acoustics to share the wisdom of her twenties and its accompanying emotional breakthroughs.
The album begins with distorted echoes on "Go Outside!," where Cara shares her tendency to mentally spiral: "How can I come back to earth / When I can't go outside?" Speaking on her craving for negativity, she explains how "previous albums had a heavy stubbornness, an angsty and closed-viewed perspective on the world. That is gone." The song is setting the tone for the emotional growth and confrontations that are to come.
"Dead Man," an album highlight, follows soon. Crisp, marching drums are elevated by keys in the chorus as Cara croons like a jazz singer about a love that is dying. "Thank your lucky stars I'm creative," she declares with menace and attitude against an instrumental that builds on more jazz elements. A mid-song breakdown filled with buzzing trumpets demands you get up and dance. Although she's talking to a dead man in her relationship, Cara asserts during our conversation that while her "default melancholy is there, I’ve turned it into something better. There is still love there, only shaped differently.”
"I'm a Cancer, I'm a very dramatic person"
Thus begins her journey of emotional maturity and facing life with lens of positivity. "Subside," a beautiful ballad about the passage of time, demands your attention. Impermanence and death are topics that have long scared her, Cara shares, but with more time and healthy relationships, she's found peace with those ideas. "Time's just pocket change (Ooh) / That I'm wasting away" is sung with such heaviness that it tugs at the strings of your heart, and yet, the melody ends with a lighter, brighter feeling. Things will be fine, she asserts.
Subsequent songs carry on her signature attitude, including the sensual groove of "Slow Motion." Doo-wop-like harmonies declare a lover that makes every moment feel like an unreal, sped down movie scene. Similar is fellow album single "(Isn't It) Obvious," with its deep bass and light drums. The song even features a guitar solo from John Mayer—Cara rarely features artists on her own songs—that surprises her as much as it surprises the listener. Praising Mayer's willingness to collaborate, she says to us that the collaboration “felt like an out of body experience.”
"That default melancholy is there, but I’ve turned it into something better"
This message is also conveyed through the album cover, Cara shares. "So much of our love and life is not about wanting the thing to work out, but knowing we'll be OK if it doesn't," she summarizes of its themes. The cover depicts two versions of Cara, balancing each other in a trust exercise and posed against a velvet, burgundy backdrop. Warm colors like red invoke the imagery of love, but cool undertones as in wine shades provide contrast: "negative and positive are working in tandem," she explains of the album cover.
New relationships, ones withunfamiliar feelings of security and comfort, have informed much of Love & Hyperbole. "Fire," another ballad, has Cara humming about a consuming, exciting love. The chorus is simple, and though it can toe the line of cliché, you cannot help but smile at the pure joy and honesty. "It's the first time I've written a love song without any fear or negativity attached to it. 'Fire' is simply happy, free of inhibitions," she shares.
"Having pain and loss, having contrast in life is important"
The "hyperbole" part of the album title, then, enters with tracks like "Run Run." Cara questions why someone is pursuing her, warning them to run away lest she falls back on past tendencies. Dramatic lines like "You're light as helium / What if I drag you down?" could sound heavy, as the sentiment might warrant, but a groovy, upbeat instrumental and playful vocal delivery make the song one of relatable humor, not tears—the hyperbole buoys sadness into laughter. "I'm a Cancer, I'm a very dramatic person," she jokes of the song.
"Nighttime Thing" is another album highlight, picking up the pace as another perky, optimistic love song. You're dancing along with Cara in her living room as she beckons her lover to make their relationship the real deal. The song reveals again how bright, yet reckless her newfound positivity can feel. It's soundtracked by dreamy, indie-pop synths and airy harmonies, balanced with more sharp, marching percussion. It's about the realization that life is not about constant sacrifice, but also adventure and embracing the thrill. "Gotta list of all things unavoidable / It's you and taxes and dying," catches the ear as the album's thesis.
"Much of our love and life is not about wanting the thing to work out, but knowing you’ll be OK if it doesn’t"
When discussing the emotional arc of her twenties and the nature of her previous albums, Cara is hesitant to draw a comparison. "It's strange to compare yourself to things you've already done, or a younger version of yourself," she shares of her own attempts at introspection. While songs like "Here" and albums like Growing Pains were cynical, seeing sadness as inevitable and the end of all matters, Love & Hyperbole is Alessia Cara finding warmth in love and peace in the duality of her life. On album closer "Clearly," she explains the lines "We were roaming in the desert, found an olive tree" as finding a relationship that is truly, clearly one of positivity. “I used to think that love makes you smaller, and that that was a noble thing." Now, with an experience that thrills like fire and expands like the heavens opening, Cara is content with acoustic hugs and cheesy, dramatic declarations of love.
Listen to Love & Hyperbole on Spotify and Apple Music now.
Materials provided by ॰1824.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse