In her 2015 song, “Four Pink Walls,” a 17-year-old Alessia Cara basically made a written manifestation of her life now. When you’re young, those days that you daydream of seeing your talent take you places are so real that you can taste them. The possibilities that a vision could become a living dream – that’s the best part of living. When you can see something for yourself before anybody else can.
What you don’t realize are the things that come with “the dream.” On top of getting older, it’s like the jigsaw puzzles that fit in your previous life suddenly become jagged. The corners aren’t so neat; the picture is a little distorted. There’s a real need to calibrate everything that you thought you know. The opening song to Cara’s sophomore album, The Pains of Growing Up , “Growing Pains” is the title of the story. “You’re on your own, kid.” This sample begins the listening as if life drops you off at the bus stop at some point to find your own way home. Whatever home may be to you. After a three-year break which were filled with commitments to her debut album, 2015’s Know-It-All, Cara is ready to teach us what’s she’s learned and everything that’s she deconstructed.
The 808 and harmony laced, “Growing Pains” was the first taste that we gained from the now 22-year-old Alessia Cara and then revisited at the end of the album. Many fans have justifiably looked to the strength of Cara in the sense of their own self-image. Listen to “Scars To Your Beautiful.” With every artist, you can give the advice, but it’s somehow hard to follow it in your own right. Physician heal thyself.
Starting to look like Ms. Know-It-All can’t take her own advice
Can’t find pieces of my peace of mind
The slowed grove of “Easier Said” is telling people that it’s ok to take time to mend yourself. Even with the strength that Cara has shown, it may be going against her “get up and get after it” attitude, but everyone needs time to decompress from trauma.
The dirge of touring and promotion can hamper the fulfillment of those bright lights that any artist aspires to bask in. Once the door of “making it” is open and you walk through it, nothing will ever be the same. Cara is coming to this realization that you can’t stay in those “four pink walls.”
Can’t run back to my youth the way I want to
The days my brother was quicker to fool
“What I Know,” the second acoustic track on the album, speaks about the “glamorous tour life.” It’s not all what it seems. There’s a double entendre that speaks to this song and connects another song on the album. Cara sings,
“Just me, myself and nothing
But I taught me how to love it”
The acoustic tracks on the album are some of the most personal. It’s where you dismiss the big production and focus on Cara’s voice, the melody, and the weight of what’s she saying. Songs like “I Don’t Want To”, “Wherever I Live”, and “A Little More” are completely honest not only in missing someone and wanting more from a person, but her own journey.
“Girl Next Door”, a soulful journey produced by ClickNPress, is a proclamation to the world that the mark on her world won’t be forgotten. The girl who was wary of the party on “Here” on her first album has grown into her own sense of individuality as a young woman.
When you get older, the world looks different. You start growing out of fairy tales and start seeing more things for what they are. Cara takes that on in two songs; “7 Days” and “All We Know.” “7 Days” levels an upbeat, pop-based melody with a plea to a higher power about the ills of the world. A beautiful looped set of guitar chords placed themselves around a programmed beat while Cara tries to figure out the “line between real and fantasy”. (St Nick, Oz are metaphors of things not being what they seem).
This album feels like looking through Polaroids of Cara’s life in between albums. The first person perspective is so refreshing. Some of them are faded. Some tear-stained. Unsure even, and some happy moments all the same. That’s growing up. “Not Today” and “I Don’t Want To” go hand and hand in the various emotions of love. “Not Today” speaks to it being ok to wallowing in the emotions of love lost as long as you don’t stay there. “I Don’t Want To,” an acoustic track that lets Cara’s arrangements and voice shine through is searching
Love evolves as you get older as well. You realize that the “white picket fence” motif that you pictured as you get older is just a mirage. It takes work and somehow you have to forgot on the ways you think you should make it grow. Cara shows her clever pen on “Nintendo Game,” attributing the chase to “Zelda” and “Mario Kart,” and realizing that affection isn’t about that. The No I.D. produced “Comfortable,” which sounds like a snapshot of 1950’s doo-wop, it speaks to the “honeymoon phase.” It’s only when you get through that phase and all the quirks that you truly win the game of love.
However, there are flip sides to losing it. You might not get closure. Cara pens these questions on “Out of Love”. An emotional ballad on a bond being broken and you being in your head as to why. From time to time, there could be resentment as well. A need to detach from negativity and the life that freedom gives. “Trust My Lonely”, which will be an anthem for those who want to lose dead weight speaks to not being in relationships or situations just to have them. These are very natural human emotions coming from the intelligent point of view of Alessia Cara.
The Pains of Growing Up is the journey to 22-year-old Alessia Cara. There are a few bumps. There’s questioning yourself and who you are. The realization of a dream and tweaking it to fit the real-world acclimation to it. And there’s love and it being a tornado of emotions. Sometimes love can be exciting; other times, it will break down your foundation. Growing up is scary as hell. Alessia Cara meets her growing pains with a confidence in a mature sound and catchy arrangements like only she can.
