GRAE Releases Debut Album ‘Whiplash’.
Written by: Marco Belotti
Whiplash is the debut album from GRAE, the incredible alt-pop artist based in Toronto. Finally!
Until now, the artist has released only EPs. My favourite one Permanent Maniac, released in 2020 and has garnered over 5 million streams to date.
But now here we are, let’s talk about Whiplash. In this project, we hear the artistic maturity of GRAE, an album in
which the alt-pop soul of the artist is blended with dream-pop productions. As we can hear in the song “Grenade”, an amazing dream pop ballad with an explosive chorus preceded by a great pre-chorus. We can also hear the artistic change inside the artist also in other songs, like the previously released single “Boxes”.
As said by GRAE, ‘The idea for “Boxes” came about when I looked around my room one day and realized I wanted to tear down all the posters I’ve had on my walls since I can remember. That was a significant moment because I always thought I’d be that girl wearing a band t-shirt with posters covering her walls forever. But I needed a change. I thought about how I’m ‘not that kid anymore’, and I wanted to mature in my style and ‘grow up’.
This is exactly the imagery that we can see if we close our eyes and we listen on the song.
Including the previous releases, she crafts a hazy pop world filled with spacious vocals, with deeply personal lyrics. It’s both starkly intimate and boldly ambitious, the sort of music that can soundtrack a bedroom hangout just as easily as it can a venue of thousands.
It is also a “start of a new phase of life” album, like in the fifth track “Forget You”. It’s never easy to forget someone but the ability of doing it is part of the growing process, and the confusion is part of the process too. As GRAE mentioned, ‘my debut album Whiplash was born during a time of confusion and indecisiveness. Falling in and out of love with people I thought would be in my life forever but found myself desperately trying to forget. Did I love them, hate them, want to remember them or forget them?’
We, the “millennials” have already lived this period (well, I’m 27, not 40 but believe me, I’ve passed through this too) and it hurts. But it will be over soon, believe me, nothing last forever.
Listening to the other songs of the album, from “How Very Dare You” to “Don’t Know How to Girlfriend”, the last track of the album, passing through “No Lovey Dovey” we can hear that is an album filled with a lot of self reflection, love, heartbreak, and discovery.
‘Just like anything I write, it was really therapeutic for me to get these feelings out.’
And it’s a good album, really, with good production. Other than this, the fact that an artist can explain with music her feelings and emotions is always something that I personally like a lot.
Great Job, GRAE, lovely album!
Connect with GRAE: Instagram