Gracie Abrams’ “Good Riddance”: An Emotional Time Capsule Filled with Heartache and Self-Destruction
By Joy Villanueva
23-year-old pop indie artist Gracie Abrams knows exactly how to hit listeners in the gut with her shiny new debut album Good Riddance.
Produced by Aaron Dessner of The National, the soon-to-be opener of fellow pop artist Taylor Swift finds herself immersed in the overwhelming feelings of self-image and how it inclines to Abrams’ relationships in life.
Along with this, the tracks upon the album are abundantly reminiscent to that of the album folklore by Swift, and have found a way to bring listeners all over the world together by a string of cathartic senses of “what do we do now?” Though the album is thoughtful and pieced together perfectly with instrumentals, it is quite difficult to differentiate the tracks as they spill over and blend into each other, making all of them sound slightly the same in their own circumstances.
Reeling in listeners with the first track, Best can only be explained as a song reliving residual, quiet truths of unrequited love. The track is filled with sneaky doubts of worthiness, resulting in issues with the past relationships Abrams has spoken so clearly about within her discography. With guitar-led instrumentals, Best ends with a triumphant yet clear message: though her best was not given, apologies are best left unspoken.
Abrams’ second track on the list, I know it won’t work, is a heartbreaking indie-rock tale of accepting that a relationship is bound to fail, but that doesn’t stop her from still desiring it with the lyric: “But you're better off, I'm bein' honest / So, won't you stop / Holdin' out for me when I don't want it?/ Just brush me off / 'Cause I'm your ghost right now, your house is haunted” Abrams is proud but upset in admitting this veracity; this continues with the tracks Where do we go now? and Will you cry?
The rest of the album is similar in themes of needing an ex-lover back in Abrams’ life; it is clear in the songs Full machine, I should hate you, Fault line, and Difficult, that the person is no longer of use to her, but at least they are still around to keep her company without the painful, physical distance between them. I should hate you is filled with racing beats of guitar riffs, but somehow relinquishing it with heart-rending lyrics like: “Drivin' home to talk about you / At my table in the dark / All I ever think about is / Where the hell you even are / And I swear to God I'd kill you / If I loved you less hard”
Tracks Amelie and This is what the drugs are for explore the existing notion of loss, both songs being delicate love letters to the ways a stranger can irrevocably change our lives without recognizing it. The songs were meticulously crafted in Dessner’s Long Pond Studios, where Swift filmed the famous “folklore: the long pond studio sessions”.
Album closers The blue and Right now appear to be uplifting and victorious in their own sense; The blue stands tall at being one of the only love songs in Abrams' discography, while Right now is driven by synths and magical tones of acceptance, acting as a mirror of how challenging traveling can be without a feeling of knowing exactly where home is at this point.
Good Riddance will pursue in breaking hearts for days to come, and Abrams seemed to have planned this out perfectly, opening for the upcoming “The Eras” tour with Swift; the tour is expected to approach soon, kicking off in April. In an interview with Billboard, Abrams is true in identifying the underlying sincerity in the record:
“The album’s not just about one thing. There’s lots of self-reflection and accountability in the words this time. I felt like there were a lot of personal shifts over the course of the year that the album came together, and walking away from versions of myself that I didn’t recognize anymore and very much saying ‘good riddance’ to those."