For six albums over the course of the last decade or so, Canadian singer-songwriter Abel Tesfaye has inhabited his dark and brooding alter ego, known as The Weeknd. In 2023, he suggested that this album, Hurry Up Tomorrow, would be his final outing with that stage name.

Indeed, the album does smack of finality, all 22 songs of it spanning nearly 90 minutes of dreamy and disconcerting synthesizer-fueled confessions and intro sections. It’s not an easy listen, musically or lyrically. But it is at times a mesmerizing one.

The Weeknd seems to have reached the end of the road, with many songs here focusing on death and a longing to step into that release. We hear harsh profanities at times, as well as some admissions of meaningless sex and despair over broken romances.

But as it progresses, The Weeknd’s focus gets unexpectedly spiritual, with several songs focusing explicitly on God’s grace, mercy and redemption, and The Weeknd’s desire to fully experience those things.

The overall result is a jarring journey, spanning the distance between suicidal ideation to the hope of finding peace with God.

POSITIVE CONTENT

Album opener “Wake Me Up” hints at where The Weeknd will arrive about 21 songs later. There’s a longing for deliverance from spiritual threats (“It feels like I’m dying/Wake me up, these demons/Keep creeping, don’t fear them.” And in a prayer-like moment, he sings, “I’m feeling like I’m paralyzed/Cleanse me with your fire/Open up my eyes.”

“Cry for Me” yearns, “I hope that I live life for a reason,” and admits the isolating emptiness of fame, a theme that turns up repeatedly on the album: “‘Cause the stage too a toll/Been faded on the floor/In this penthouse prison, I’m alone/ … Every time I hit the road, it takes a little piece of me.” “Drive” likewise recognizes “fame is a disease.”

Paralyzed and on the verge of drowning in a bathtub, The Weeknd sings, “Trying to remember everything that my preacher said/Tryna right my wrongs, my regrets filling up my head.” A bit later we hear, “I’ve been baptized in fear, my dear/I’ve been the chief of sin/Washing my soul within/ … Like Paul, I’m the chief of sin.”

“Open Hearts” admits the difficulty of being open to love: “Where do I start/ When I open my heart/It’s never easy falling in love again.” “Given Up on Me” contrasts The Weeknd’s selfishness (“I’ve been lying to your faces, yeah/I’ve been always wasted, it’s too late to save me”) with a desire for salvation (“Save me, save me, save me”) and confusion about why someone (God?) won’t just let him die (“Why won’t you let me sleep?/ … Why won’t you let me die?”). “Take Me Back to L.A.” laments having a numb soul (“Now I can’t even feel the breeze/ … Now I have nothing real left/I want my soul”).

“Big Sleep” seems to voice regret over squandered time (“Well, you used up your borrowed light/And you wasted your borrowed time”) before reciting a version of a common children’s prayer (“Now I lay me down to sleep/Pray the Lord my soul to keep/Angels watch me through the night/Wake me up with light”).

“Give Me Mercy” is so drenched in spiritual language it could practically be sung in a contemporary church service: “Every time I lost my way, I lost my faith in you/Fightin’ my temptations, put my body through abuse/Devil’s tricks with paradise/None of it is true, fighting for you light.” And then this confession and prayer: “Hope that you see me when I’m depleted/Give me mercy like you do and forgive me like you do.” Later, The Weeknd talks about trading sin for grace: “Ghost of my sins passing by/ … Give it all away just to feel your grace.”

“Red Terror” seems to be a message of hope and encouragement from The Weeknd’s mother from the other side of the grave: “Hush, my child, you’re mine/ … You’re still my child, don’t cry/Death is nothing at all, it does not count/I only slipped away into the next room.”

Album closer “Hurry Up Tomorrow” is likewise saturated with prayer, confession and a longing for heaven: “Wash me with your fire/Who else has to pay for my sins?/ … So I sing heaven after love/I want heaven when I die/I want to change/I want the pain no more.”

CONTENT CONCERNS

For all of that positivity, however, we have some significant content issues to deal with here. Five songs include harsh profanity, including f-words, s-words, “b–ch,” “d–n” “h—,” “p-ss” and the n-word.

Sexual references aren’t frequent, but when they show up, they’re harsh and in your face, including a reference to oral sex, a use of the f-word in a sexual context and some leering moments (“Tryna see you with your clothes off” in “Niagra Falls”). That song also includes a line that references getting high before having sex with someone.

Those issues certainly earn the album’s parental advisory for explicit content. But they’re arguably not the most problematic. Throughout “Hurry Up Tomorrow,” we get repeated references to death. The end seems very near in “Baptized in Fear,” where The Weeknd only narrowly avoids drowning in a bathtub: “I fell asleep in the tub, I was there with paralysis/ … Water fill my lungs, vision blurry/Heartbeat slower, heartbeat slower, heartbeat slower.”

In “Reflections Laughing,” we hear, “If you let me drown/I’ll die in your arms again.” Likewise, “The Abyss” is possibly a man’s thoughts after jumping off a high place but before he hits the ground (“I don’t like the view/From halfway down/Just promise me that it won’t be slow/Will I feel the impact of the ground?”

And “Without a Warning” likewise laments the vain emptiness of fame and perhaps hints at suicide: “I don’t suppose tomorrow’s coming.” And the song’s most problematic track, “Timeless,” includes profanity, drug references and this line encouraging someone (it’s not exactly clear who) to take his or her life: “If I was you, I would just cut up my wrist.”

ALBUM SUMMARY

It’s safe to say that, in the words of Taylor Swift, The Weeknd has “a lot going on at the moment.” Confessional prayers for mercy smack up against harsh profanity and, more darkly, allusions to death and suicide.

Some of those spiritual moments are, frankly, quite remarkable. Somewhere along the line, it seems as though Abel Tesfaye has had an experience of Christian theology of sin, grace and redemption that goes deeper than we normally see in popular music. Those moments here were a pleasant surprise.

That said, I can’t help but wonder that, when people listen to this album, which of its messages will be stronger: the spiritually redemptive ones, or the darker musings about death and suicide. For someone in a vulnerable place, it wouldn’t be hard for me to see how this album could tragically open an inviting door to self-harm instead of pulling someone away from those choices and giving him or her hope.

I’m reasonably sure that Tesfaye—and perhaps some in-the-know superfans, too—might balk at that suggestion, saying that I’ve missed the point of the dramatic persona he’s created and what he’s trying to accomplish through this character. But in a world where adolescent rates of anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation are currently at historic highs, I’m not sure every vulnerable listener is going understand that artistic intent—even if there are some strong redemptive moments woven into the lyrics as well.

When an artist says, “If I was you, I would just cut up my wrist,” he needs to acknowledge that some unstable listeners might just take him up on that suggestion.

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His follow-up to 2023’s wildly successful debut, I’ve Tried Everything But Therapy (Part 1), doubles down on Swims’ strengths. Namely, his genre-busting style paired with earnest, vulnerable and confessional lyrics. Teddy doesn’t look or sound a bit like Taylor Swift. But his songwriting style borrows from her approach, even if it’s unintentional, by blurring musical boundaries and inviting fans to relate to his heartbreak, his struggles and his occasional triumphs.

Stylistically, Swims’ sound simmers like a big ol’ pot of savory gumbo, with lots of ingredients. At times, his soulful, smoky voice recalls Adele’s powerful pipes. Other times, a bit of CeeLo Green sneaks in. Is he country? Pop? R&B? Neo-soul? The simplest answer is yes.

Perhaps a bit like Jelly Roll, both stylistically and in terms of his face-tatted appearance, Teddy Swims defies easy categorization. And that, perhaps, helps explain his massive appeal: His breakthrough hit “Lose Control,” which Plugged In reviewed almost a year ago, remains in the Top 10 on Billboard’s Hot 100 mainstream hits chart, having logged a whopping 75 weeks there as of this writing.

Listening to Swims’ latest 13-song album, it’s not hard to understand his appeal. But some elements to his emotional storytelling need to be approached with caution.

POSITIVE CONTENT

Swims sings, really, about just one subject: romance. This album treats us to the good, bad and ugly in that thematic arena. On the positive side, “Not Your Man” wisely recognizes that he needs to walk away from a reckless, deceptive woman, and not to look back: “This ain’t how you treat somebody you say you love/ … I’m not your man.”

“Bad Dreams” recognizes that a woman helps Swims keep his inner shadows and struggles at bay: “Without you/I keep slippin’ into bad dreams.”

A couple of tracks sing the praises of a woman’s committed love, with Swims even wondering how he got so lucky: “You’re so beautiful, spiritual, more like a miracle/Part of me’s scared that you might be invisible/Too good to be true,” we hear on “Are You Even Real.” Likewise, “Black & White” finds him willing to let down his defenses and take a chance with someone special (“You’re the first one I told the truth to/Something’s changing inside of me when I look at you”)

“Northern Lights” fondly reminisces about a long-lost love. “Guilty” gushes that Swims is guilty “of having only eyes for you.” More sweet sentiments turn up in “If You Ever Change Your Mind,” “Hammer to the Heart” and “She Loves the Rain.” The latter finds Swims singing, “[She] finds the beauty in broken when no one else can see/Well, maybe I got a shot of her seeing good in me.”

CONTENT CONCERNS

Despite quite a few earnestly romantic moments throughout the album, we hit a few rough patches, too—and one song in particular that we need to unpack.

Perhaps in an effort to reach a broader audience, the song “She Got It?” (featuring collaborations with Coco Jones and GloRilla) packs in more explicit problems that the rest of the album’s other 12 tracks. The song finds Swims crudely objectifying a woman’s backside (“Two first-class tickets just to fit that a– in/ … Can’t buy this honey, and that s— ain’t free”). Later he adds, again blending leering lyrics with harsher profanity, “It’s so g–d–n beautiful/And you need two hands when you hold it.” Guests Jones and GloRilla pack in more still more suggestive lyrics and profanity, including uses of “b–ch,” “a–” and a couple more s-words.

Also problematic is the song “Funeral,” which plays with imagery blending sex and death: “Put that poison on your lips/Baby, take it slow/Lying in your arms/What a way to go.”Mildly suggestive references to sharing a bed, getting tangled up in sheets and being wowed by a woman’s body turn up in quite a few tracks, such as “Funeral,” “Are You Even Real” and “Hammer to the Heart.” Likewise, we get some passing references to drinking and getting high on the tracks “Black & White” and “Guilty.” And a smattering of mild profanities, such as “h—” and “d–n,” turn up as well.

ALBUM SUMMARY

Teddy Swims neither looks nor sounds like your typical pop superstar. But his passionate, personal music—often about love gone wrong, or (occasionally) right—obviously connects with a broad fan base.

In terms of content, this album represents that classic glass half-full, glass half-empty conundrum. It features some introspection, some tenderness and what seems to be a genuine longing for lasting love.

But then you’ve got some decidedly toxic stuff to slosh through as well, especially “She Got It?” Whereas most of the album’s problems are relatively tame by 2025 standards, that track revels lustily in objectification, with a surprising of harsh profanity tossed in, too.

The latter song certainly tempers my temptation to heap too much praise on Teddy Swims’ latest effort. There’s some nice stuff here, both musically and lyrically. But there are some nasty elements to steer clear of, too.

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Now let me add another young woman’s name to that burgeoning list: Gigi Perez.

This 24-year-old singer-songwriter’s path in some ways mirrors many who’ve gone before her. She leveraged her huge TikTok following into a contract with Interscope, a major record label.

But then a curious thing happened: She decided she’d like to go back to just releasing music herself, independently.

One of her latest efforts, “Sailor Song,” proves that you don’t need a major record label to be successful, as the track has had nearly half a billion streams on Spotify alone and climbed as high as No. 7 on that streaming outlet’s main singles chart.

I think it’s also safe to say that Perez has a unique sound. Armed with an acoustic guitar and an ethereal voice, Perez sounds more like Bon Iver than the women listed above, with distant echoes of something like The Beach Boys lingering further back in the sonic haze.

Though Perez says she spent some time in a Christian school, this song expresses her disbelief in God now. Perez is also openly gay, and romance (and more) chronicled here is obviously one between two women.

POSITIVE CONTENT

We hear that Perez’s mother is concerned about her wellbeing: “My mom says that she’s worried.”

CONTENT CONCERNS

“Sailor Song” describes infatuation at first sight that quickly moves into a sexual relationship: “I saw her in the rightest way/Looking like Anne Hathaway/ … And then, she came up to my knees/Begging, baby, would you please?/Do the things you said you’d do to me, to me.” While not explicit, those lyrics—and others like them elsewhere in the song—carry an erotic charge and leave little doubt about what’s happening in this relationship

The same-gender aspect of the song is clear when Perez sings, “She took my fingers to her mouth.” And the singer also adds, “And when we’re getting dirty, I forget all that is wrong.”

Perez also says bluntly that she’s rejected God and is now seeking salvation in sex and romance: “I don’t believe in God, but I believe that you’re my savior.”

TRACK SUMMARY

Looking for identity and meaning in sexuality is hardly a new thing. What has become much more frequent the last few years is the number of musicians, both men and women, singing openly about same-gender relationships and sensual encounters.

That’s what Gigi Perez gives listeners in “Sailor Song”: an unabashedly sensual song about connecting physically with another woman.

Just as we saw in Chappell Roan’s story and heard in her music earlier this year, Perez seems to have had some experience with Christianity before rejecting it—and saying no to belief in God, too. Instead of seeking a relationship with God that leads to redemption, she’s looking to sexual intimacy to provide transcendent meaning in life.

Kids growing up today are bombarded with messages like Perez’s when it comes to God and sex. The culture is having an ongoing conversation about these issues –every single day—one in which individual autonomy and emotions trump nearly everything, including faith.

The question we face as faith-guided parents, grandparents, youth leaders and concerned adults, then, is this: How do we enter into that conversation, too? It almost certainly won’t be comfortable. And there’s likely not a one-size-fits-all answer.

But our children need our voice and our listening ear, too, if they’re going to encounter grace and truth that are bigger than a momentary feeling or experience.

I don’t know what Gigi Perez’s experience of God was in the Christian school she went to. But I wonder if she had someone who was genuinely willing to hear her, to be present with her, to ask hard questions and to engage in authentic dialogue with her. I wonder …

She’s having that dialogue now with millions of kids. And we need to be willing to step into it with the ones we know and love as well if they’re going to hear a message of salvation that’s bigger than sexual identity or experience. 

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Now, it has, with the band’s release of From Zero, Linkin Park’s eighth studio album.

Linkin Park 1.0 was known, among other things, for Bennington’s searing, agonized vocals driving songs drenched with pain and alienation. His aching, raging articulation of loss connected with a generation of rock and metal fans in the early 2000s. And Bennington’s battles with his demons—sexual abuse as a child paired with alcohol and drug abuse later in his life—could not be salved by the worldwide acclaim his band achieved. In the end, he succumbed to a well-chronicled battle with depression and the temptation of ending it all.

Linkin Park didn’t end, as I noted. But it has changed. Not surprisingly, the group’s elevation of a new frontwoman, Emily Armstrong, hasn’t been without controversy on multiple levels.

For many, the idea that Bennington could ever be “replaced” was simply anathema. Another layer of controversy has swirled regarding the 38-year-old Armstrong’s alleged connections to Scientology and some of its most well-known practitioners.

Armstrong said of being brought into the fold of Linkin Park, “It was like I stepped into Disney World. It was like … full of magic and full of opportunity and everything you could possibly imagine.” 

For anyone wondering if Linkin Park still has cultural resonance almost a decade after their last album was released, the charts seem to answer that question with a resounding yes. From Zero narrowly missed being the No. 1 album in the U.S. in the first week of its release, and still managed to top the charts in 10 other countries.

And while no one would likely ever confuse Armstrong’s voice with Bennington’s, there’s enough similarity vocally that by the second or third track on From Zero, I wasn’t even really thinking about it much differently than any other Linkin Park album. This 11-track effort clocks in at a brief 32 minutes, reviving the band’s signature fusion of rock and rap, screaming and synthesizing, emoting and, well, more emoting.

POSITIVE CONTENT

There’s a lot of hurt poured out on From Zero—just as we’ve witnessed on every other Linkin Park album. Amid that pain, we hear occasional moments of honest vulnerability and perspective on the hurt that’s been endured.

On album opener “The Emptiness Machine,” the lyrics deal with why someone keeps getting sucked back into an emotionally abusive relationship, even though she knows better. The reason she “gave up who I am for who you wanted me to be” is that “I only wanted to be a part of something.”

“Over Each Other” recognizes that a relationship is badly fractured because neither side ever listens to the other: “I can’t go to sleep/I lie awake at night/I’m so tired of talkin’/Over each other.”

“Casualty” could be heard as someone having enough self-respect to look for the escape hatch in an unhealthy relationship: “Let me out, set me free/ … I won’t be your casualty.” Similarly, “Two Faced” chronicles a lover’s realization of being played by a partner who will never take responsibility for anything.

“IGYEIH” stands for the chorus’ repeated line, “I gave you everything I have,” which—not surprisingly at this point—wasn’t enough.

The closest we come, I’d argue, to anything genuinely positive on the album comes in the last song, where we hear, “I asked for forgiveness a hundred times/Believed it myself when I halfway apologized.”

CONTENT CONCERNS

Much of what I included in the section above could also be seen as being problematic, too, as this album’s 11 songs plod through brokenness, anger, alienation and pain. There is, unfortunately, very little light here.

In terms of harsh content, the album features two profanities, two f-words: one shows up in the first track, “The Emptiness Machine,” as someone bitterly realizes that hope for a good outcome is an act of futile (and profane) naiveté. The other appears in “Good Things Go.” We also hear lines that describe (probably metaphorically, though it’s not clear) submitting to the abuse of someone else: “I let you cut me open/Just to watch me bleed.”

That sense of being a victim of someone abuse and powerlessly submitting to it shows up repeatedly on From Zero. On “Cut the Bridge,” for instance, we hear about some who seems to take sadistic joy in hurting others by blowing up relationships: “Everything was perfect/Always made me nervous/Knowing you would burn it/Just to watch it burn/ … I was sitting on the dynamite for you to light the fuse.”

“Heavy Is the Crown” deals with yet another relationship going up in smoke: “Today’s gonna be the day you notice/ ‘Cause I’m tired of explaining what the joke is/ … Fire in the sunrise, ashes rainin’ down/Try to hold it in, but it keeps bleeding out.”

Most of the remaining tracks vent some combination of anger, disgust and rage, yet there seems to be little hope of avoiding relational obliteration. “Overflow,” for instance, delivers that message with a brutally nihilistic right hook: “Turning from a white sky/To a black hole/Turning from sunlight/To a shadow, oh/I know I can’t make it stop/I know I’m out of control/I keep filling it up/To overflow.”

ALBUM SUMMARY

It’s no mystery to me why Linkin Park went supernova near the end of 2000. Shinoda, Bennington and the rest of the band—like so many huge rock acts before them—gave primal voice to the disillusionment and alienation of youth. “I tried so hard and got so far/But in the end, it doesn’t even matter,” Bennington and Co. told us in 2001’s decade-defining hit “In the End.” For a generation of young metal fans, lyrics like those connected viscerally with their own brokenness, just as Nirvana’s music had done nearly a decade before. Nothing mattered, and truth was nowhere to be found. The only thing that felt real was pain—unending pain.

But what happens when all there is … is pain? How do you find the will and the hope to push forward, to persevere? Linkin Park boldly vented the pain of a generation, and it made them multiplatinum rock gods along the way. But even pop-culture deification wasn’t enough to stave off Bennington’s demons,.

I write all that because when we’re young—or younger—sometimes it can feel like pain and reality are indeed synonymous. And finding a band that puts words to our hurts can indeed offer a kind of catharsis—for a while. Those voices can give us the words and the sounds to express the anguish inside. I get that. I was that kid, and I’ve connected with plenty of songs and artists like that.

It takes time to see and learn that pain doesn’t always have the last word, that hope can emerge over time in ways that surprise us. But when that pain is magnified and reinforced so powerfully, for some the outcome is grim indeed—both for the artists themselves and for those who follow them.

What I was hoping for on this album was just a modicum of perspective from Linkin Park. I had hoped that seven-plus years after Bennington’s death, perhaps there would be a point of view bigger than never-ending pain and rage. I didn’t expect daisies and “Kum Ba Ya,” mind you. But some perspective that life doesn’t have to be as hopeless as it sometimes feels in the moment? That would have been gratifying.

But this feels like an album that Linkin Park could have made in 2004—which for some fans will be a feature, not a bug. For old fans and new, though, I’d hoped for a bit more, well, hope. Just a bit.

It’s not really there.

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It’s a strikingly apt image. Hit Me Hard and Soft feels immersive and saturated. At times, Eilish’s unique strong-but-delicate voice almost sounds like it’s underwater—and that we, her listeners—have plunged into the emotional depths with her.

I suspect few would quickly compare Eilish with her decade-older contemporary, Taylor Swift. Eilish plays the foil of the alt-goth kid to Swift’s awe-shucks girl next door.

POSITIVE CONTENT

Album opener “Skinny” reflects on the tension between others’ thoughts about Eilish’s weight and her own point of view: “People say I look happy/Just because I got skinny/But the old me is still me/And maybe the real me/And I think she’s pretty.”

That track also reflects on the fickle nature of celebrity (“Am I already on the way out?/When I step off the stage/I’m a bird in a cage”). It also suggests that the online world’s appetite for scandal is insatiable (“And the Internet is hungry/For the meanest kind of funny/And somebody’s gotta feed it”).

While Eilish is known for her skewering cynicism and sarcasm, some moments here feel surprisingly earnest, such as her plea for lasting love on “Birds of a Feather”: “I don’t think I could love you more/It might not be for long, baby, I/I’ll love you ‘til the day I die.”

Several other songs try to make sense of disappointment and loss in the wake of broken romantic relationships (“Chihiro,” “The Greatest,” “L’Amour de Ma Vie”).

“The Diner” offers unsettling commentary on celebrity stalkers, and it’s written from the perspective of the stalker: “I saw you on the screens/I know we’re meant to be/You’re starring in my dreams/In magazines/You’re looking right at me.”

CONTENT CONCERNS

In late 2023, Eilish came out as gay. Only, she thought everyone already knew: “But I kind of thought, ‘Wasn’t it obvious?’ I didn’t realize people didn’t know.”

That personal detail is relevant here because Eilish sings repeatedly about lust and love for other women throughout (a fact that likely influences the way we hear some of the lyrics about love in included in the previous section).

“Lunch” is startlingly ribald as Eilish sings about wanting to perform oral sex on another woman. Some lyrics are too explicit to include here, but it’s worth noting that Eilish says, “It’s a craving, not a crush.”

Likewise, “Wildflower” seems to describe a deeply dysfunctional love-and-sex triangle among three women. We hear lines such as, “And I wonder/Do you see her in the back of your mind?/In my eyes?” A suggestive reference to nakedness turns up on “The Greatest” as well.

On “Chihiro,” we hear about a disappointed lover who perhaps hints at suicide (“And you tell me it’s all been a trap/And you don’t know if you’ll make it back”), prompting Eilish to respond, “I say, ‘No. Don’t say that.’”

There’s a passing allusion to reincarnation (albeit one that’s likely intended metaphorically) in “Birds of a Feather”: “I knew you in another life/You had that same look in your eyes.”

“The Greatest” is a melancholy song chronicling a dying relationship: “And we don’t have to fight/When it’s not worth fighting for.” The song also hints that a couple is cohabitating.

More suggestive innuendo turns up in “Bittersuite”: “I see the way you want me/I wanna be the one/ … Can’t sleep, have you underneath/ … Keep me off my feet.” 

We hear the album’s lone profanity, an s-word, on “Birds of a Feather.”

ALBUM SUMMARY

It’s impossible to know for sure how autobiographical any given artist’s songs truly are. That said, Hit Me Hard and Soft has the feel of something that’s deeply personal and revealing. Billie Eilish paints a complicated and layered self-portrait here of a woman longing for love and deeply aware of the ways she’s had her heart broken … and how she’s broken others’ hearts.

Eilish doesn’t play coy when it comes to the fact that she identifies as a lesbian. “Lunch,” in particular, is shockingly shameless in its depiction of Eilish’s female-focused sexual appetites.

The fact that Eilish sings so matter-of-factly about her same-gender attraction offers stark evidence of how far our mainstream culture has walked down this path when it comes to all things LGBT. It’s hard to imagine such plainspoken same-sex fantasizing from a mainstream pop star even five years ago. I suspect many—including some young people quietly grappling with this issue in their own lives—will hear a deep affirmation of that path here.

That perspective, combined at certain points with other suggestively sensual lyrics, is certainly one of the big stories here–especially for families who might have young fans of Billie Eilish. Those moments offer more than enough reason to hit the pause button on streaming Eilish’s latest, as she veers diametrically from God’s intended design for sexual intimacy between a man and woman in covenantal marriage.

We could easily stop right there. But I think we need to press just a bit deeper.

As I listened to each track here—just as was the case on when I reviewed Taylor Swift’s Tortured Poets Department—I hear brokenness and longing, a deep desire for intimacy and meaning and connection. Yes, I respectfully believe Billie’s looking for that love in, as the old song says, all the wrong places. But her heart and yearning to know and be known is achingly, painfully present almost from start to finish.

Billie Eilish may not know it—and she (as well as many others, I suspect) might mock me for saying it—but she’s looking for God, looking for a kind of love only He can give her.

The post Hit Me Hard and Soft appeared first on Plugged In.

This 34-year-old Irish native is probably best known for his hit “Take Me To Church,” which told listeners that sex was both a part of Hozier’s religion and an act of worship.

So, in many ways, listeners have come to expect Hozier to be lyrically daring. And he continues to be so. Especially on his new EP, Unreal Unearth: Unheard, with his latest single called “Too Sweet.”

While his former hit was bold and basically sacrilegious, “Too Sweet” is so masterfully written that you might not expect it to simply be about how Hozier is not a morning person, while a woman in his life is. And he is, kindly, over it.

POSITIVE CONTENT

It’s true. Hozier is not a morning person (“It can’t be said I’m an early bird/It’s 10 o’clock before I say a word”). But this woman in his life is, and she feels that if Hozier was, he’d be a healthier person (“How do you sleep so well/You keep tellin’ me to live right/To go to bed before the daylight/But then you wake up for the sunrise”).

But that’s not how he wants to wake up. He wonders if she ever wants to just take it easy and “wake up, dark as a lake/Smellin’ like a bonfire/lost in a haze?”.

It’s clear this woman is “drunk on life” and he thinks “it’s great.”

Still, his preferences are vastly different from hers.

He wants to enjoy life with a drink (“I think I’ll take my whiskey neat”), a strong cup of coffee (“My coffee black”), unconventional work hours (“I work late when I’m free from the phone”) and a much later bedtime that’s certainly unproductive in this woman’s eyes (“And my bed at three”).

It seems that she’s the opposite of Hozier in every way. He calls her “sweet.” In fact, she’s “too sweet” for him. Too structured, too put together and too uptight (“You treat your mouth as if it’s Heaven’s gate/The rest of you like you’re the TSA”).

CONTENT CONCERNS

It’s not necessarily bad to be a morning person. It’s not a sin to be a night owl. It’s totally fine to enjoy different things, to have different preferences and to work on a different schedule than most. To view life in a different lens.

Really, the only concerning lyric here is that Hozier thinks it’s strange this woman wants to keep in shape. To which he comments “who wants to live forever, Babe?”.

He also mentions that he enjoys drinking his “whiskey neat.”

TRACK SUMMARY

Of all the things this song says, I think it most clearly communicates that Hozier is a masterful lyricist.

I’ve never listened to a song that basically told someone to enjoy life and not take everything so seriously in such a beautiful way.

As someone who is pretty type-A, I can appreciate a lot of what is being said here. Especially because Hozier is clear that he appreciates this woman’s preferences (“If you’re drunk on life babe, I think it’s great”) and views her as a beautiful creature (“You know you’re bright as the morning/As soft as the rain/Pretty as a vine/As sweet as a grape”).

Just one that needs to calm down and be OK that he too has his own way of enjoying things.

As for problematic content, there isn’t much here to worry about. Yes, Hozier enjoys whiskey. Sure, some of his habits could be called questionable. And he does say that he doesn’t feel life is so great that he’d want to live forever.

But there’s no profanity. No references to sex. No videos from which you’d need to shield your eyes. Just some wonderfully wound lyrics that tell a funny story of sorts.

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Then, he sang at a high school talent show, impressed his listeners and discovered he had a talent for it.

Soon after, he started a TikTok account and, in 2021, auditioned for the 19th season of American Idol and quickly moved forward before withdrawing from the competition.

But American Idol may not be where you’ve heard his voice. Not just because he eventually took himself out of the running, but because his songs are all over TikTok (where he has 4.7 million followers) and Instagram where another 1.4 million people follow him).

The latest single that Boone’s fans are embracing? It’s one that’s climbing the Billboard Hot 100 charts, too–and it’s called “Beautiful Things.”

The song features Boone’s crooning voice, tender guitar and lyrics that seem to encourage listeners to sing along. Lyrics that find Boone asking God not to snatch away all the newfound things, and people, in his life that bring him both peace and contentment.

POSITIVE CONTENT

Boone shares that he has personally struggled for the last four years. But now, things are better for him in every way. He’s close to his family (“I see my family every month”), he’s enjoying where he is in life (“And I think I may have it all”) and he’s even found a girl worth bringing home to meet his parents (“I found a girl my parents love”).

Still, he wrestles with these good things, believing that God can take them all away if He should so please. And this is exactly what he’s begging God not to do (“But I know the things He gives me He can take away/…I hope I don’t lose you/…I want you I need you, oh God/Don’t take these beautiful things that I’ve got”).

CONTENT CONCERNS

Boone says that he wants his girlfriend to be a part of his life, and remain a woman with whom he’s intimate (“She’ll come and stay the night…/And I hold you every night/That’s a feeling I wanna get used to/But there’s no man as terrified/As the man who stands to lose you”).

He also admits to dealing with anxiety, saying that he often struggles to fully enjoy what he has because he fears he will lose it all (“I’ve got enough/I’ve got peace and I’ve got love/But I’m up at night thinkin’/I just might lose it all”).

TRACK SUMMARY

This song sounds like something I would have obsessed over in college. mostly because I had a really big Indie music phase and this hits all the right notes.

Boone has this voice that some may mistake as a foreign accent. The drums come in at just the right time. The lyrics fuel young adult angst. It’s, like, the perfect combination.

But my college music choices aren’t why you’re here. You want to know what this song is about.

Primarily, it’s about a young man finally doing well in life, finally falling in love with a woman, finally reaching a place of peace… but there’s still a voice in the back of his head telling him none of it will last. It’s all momentary. Fleeting.

And instead of Boone being the one that would screw it all up, it seems that God is to blame here. God is the one who could take all of this goodness away from him. Like the story of Job.

Is he right theologically? Well, that’s up to the listener in this case. But for parents, there’s no profanity. No mention of drugs or alcohol. There is, however, the implication that Boone is sleeping with his girlfriend. And though he doesn’t talk much about it in interviews, it’s worth noting that Boone comes from a Mormon background as well and still seems connected to that faith.

The post Beautiful Things appeared first on Plugged In.

Let me give you a hint. He’s a filmmaker.  Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the 2009 Star Trek movie, the TV shows Alias and Lost … all him. 

But what about his daughter, Gracie Abrams. Ever heard of her? 

If you haven’t already caught the buzz, let me tell you a bit about this multi-talented, 24-year-old artist on the rise. 

Other than being the daughter of an extremely famous filmmaking father, Gracie is holding her own in the musical world. She opened for Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour tour and Taylor Swift’s Eras tour. And, ironically, she sort of sounds like the both of them combined, while bringing her very own sound (and killer lyrics) to the table. 

She has more than 700,000 subscribers on YouTube, 10.3 million monthly listeners on Spotify and 2.3 million followers on Instagram. She’s also up for a Grammy for Best New Artist. 

In addition, she released an EP back in 2020, and another in 2021. And now, her first studio album, Good Riddance, houses the song I’m going to talk about today. 

It’s called “I Know It Won’t Work”. And it contemplates a breakup and all the complicated feelings and emotions that come with a decision you can’t help but second guess. 

POSITIVE CONTENT

Gracie is mulling over a relationship that is no more. 

She knows that her ex-boyfriend is still waiting for her to change her mind, and that makes her decision all the more difficult (“Why won’t you try moving on for once? That might make it easy/I know we cut all the ties but you’re never really leaving”). 

She admits that she doesn’t feel like she’s worth his waiting (“What if I’m not/Worth the time and breath I know you’re saving?”). 

Still, she knows that even though part of her would love to continue this relationship, the reality just doesn’t hold (“The whole facade/Seemed to fall apart/It’s complicated”). 

CONTENT CONCERNS

Gracie says that an ex-boyfriend is keeping a part of his home cleared for her, just in case she comes back to live with him (“Heard you keep the extra closet empty/In case this year/I come back and stay throughout my twenties”). 

TRACK SUMMARY 

This is an incredibly vulnerable song. You can feel the emotion in every word she sings.

In my late teens and early twenties, “I Know It Won’t Work” would have hit home in a lot of ways: The desire to move on from a long-standing relationship, and knowing that it’d be for the best–then questioning the decision and every thought that led there. Replaying memories and specific moments in my mind.  

I’d imagine that many can relate to these lyrics, just like I can. And there’s nothing wrong with that. 

There’s also not a lot of negative content in this song–at least compared to so much of what you’ll stream today. Yes, it’s clear that Gracie and this ex had a sexual history. But it’s alluded to without being graphic. There’s no profanity. No crude lyrics. It’s mostly contemplation. 

But listeners–especially those who feel Abrams’ lyrics powerfully–should still be cautious. 

Thinking things through to make a solid decision to move forward is a good thing. Wondering what could have been is also normal. 

But staying in that place isn’t. 

Remaining in a what-could-have-been state can become extremely unhealthy. It can lead to depression. Desperation. A lack of clarity. Problematic regrets.

So, when you’re ready to make a decision, do it. And then firmly close the chapter, move on and trust God’s leading in your life. It’s always best.

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Country artist Luke Combs recently put his touch on “Fast Car,” a song I often heard while I was working at a local coffee shop in high school.

Back then, I knew this song was originally released in 1988 by singer/songwriter Tracy Chapman. But I didn’t really listen to the lyrics. At least not enough to know how sad it was. 

It’s a story about a young girl that dreams to escape her life with a love interest. But those dreams fall apart as time goes on, and she finds herself trapped in the same sort of life she yearned to escape from. 

POSITIVE CONTENT

Combs sings, word-for-word, Chapman’s version of the song, from the point of view of Chapman’s female protagonist. It’s clear that the young woman in this song wants a better life for herself, and she wants to live this life with the man she loves; a man with a “fast car.” She says, “You got a fast car/And I want a ticket to anywhere…Any place is better/Starting from zero, got nothing to lose/Maybe we’ll make something/Me, myself, I got nothing to prove.”

The fast car though isn’t going to be her only key to freedom, so she leans on hard work (“I’ve been working at the convenience store/Managed to save just a little bit of money”) and a plan (“Won’t have to drive too far/Just across the border and into the city/You and I can both get jobs/Finally, see what it means to be living”).

We also learn that this young woman is compassionate and responsible so when her mother leaves her unemployed, alcoholic father (“See, my old man’s got a problem/He live with the bottle, that’s the way it is…mama went off and left him”), she makes the decision to stay in her dead-end hometown, quit school and care for him (“I said, “Somebody’s got to take care of him”/So, I quit school and that’s what I did”). 

CONTENT CONCERNS

She’s trapped, years later, as a hard-working mom, married to the man with a fast car who used to hold promise and adventure, but is now dead weight (“You got a fast car/I got a job that pays all our bills/You stay out drinking late at the bar/See more of your friends than you do of your kids”). 

She also talks about how she and her beau would drive so fast it “felt like I was drunk.” 

TRACK SUMMARY

The song’s resolution isn’t really a resolution. Although the tune may lead you to think it is. 

It finds a hardworking mom telling the father of her children that he needs to make a life decision (“You got a fast car/Is it fast enough, so you can fly away?/You still gotta make a decision/Leave tonight, or live and die this way”). 

And, preferably, in her view, the decision will take him far away from her (“I’d always hoped for better/Thought maybe together you and me would find it/I got no plans, I ain’t going nowhere/Take your fast car and keep on driving”). 

This is a hard song on a lot of levels. It speaks to that youthful desire to live a full, vibrant life and then to the reality that often, life does not go the way we desire or plan. 

But I think it ends on a positive note. It asks, what will you do when life doesn’t pan out the way you thought it would? Because the answer to that question matters more than you know. 

The post Fast Car appeared first on Plugged In.

Individually, Bryan and Musgraves have each released more than their fare of tear-jerking songs. But now, this dynamic duo have joined forces and recently released a song, a mix of alternative country and folk, and it’s called “I Remember Everything.” 

This somber track sings like a scene from a movie as Bryan and Musgraves tell the story of a former dysfunctional and codependent couple who can’t seem to wash their memories, or expectations, away, no matter how much they drink. 

POSITIVE CONTENT

This song starts with Bryan wondering if an ex-girlfriend remembers all of the passionate, impactful memories that he can’t seem to forget (Do you remember that beat-down basement couch?/I’d sing you my love songs and you’d tell me about”). 

These are the kind of memories that burn in his mind and remind him of deep, vulnerable moments (“The sand from your hair is blowin’ in my eyes/Blame it on the beach, grown men don’t cry”). These memories can’t be erased, no matter how much he may want them to be (“I wish I didn’t, but I do/Remember every moment on the nights with you”). 

CONTENT CONCERNS

Bryan’s solution to forgetting, it seems, is consuming large amounts of alcohol (“Rot gut whiskey’s gonna ease my mind/…Strange words come out of/A grown man’s mouth when his mind is broke”). 

And perhaps he wants to forget because his ex-lover (played by Musgraves), who is also fond of alcohol (“You only smile like that when you’re drinkin’) doesn’t hold her memories of him in high regard (“you’re drinkin’ everything to ease your mind/But when the h— are you gonna ease mine?/…No, you’ll never be the man that you always swore”). 

There are two uses of the word “h—” here. The cover for this song features Zach Bryan smoking a cigarette. 

TRACK SUMMARY 

This song deals with two elements: a dysfunctional, broken couple and personal trauma that was never properly dealt with. 

Sure, it’s about plenty of other things, and the story that Bryan and Musgraves tell is powerful. The heart of this song is both sad and somber. It shows a man who drinks away his memories and a woman who explains why. 

If I were to pick a line to express the depth of emotion in this occasionally profane song, it would be ““it burns like h—” when two souls meet.”

This feels like the proper cautionary tale for those in relationships: be mindful of whom you choose and how you deal with memory, nostalgia and loss.

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