Falling in love, and yes, also sadly falling out of it, do tend to lend themselves to songs that are happy to take their time ruminating on what’s good, and not so good, about all thing romantic.
These five songs from five thoughtfully expressive artists, who know their way around the human heart and the many complex ways it finds expression, pack a whole lot of emotional punch into pop gems that manage to take something big and expansively wonderful and take it down to an intimately ruminative level such that we can immerse ourselves languidly in what’s being sung about.
They are beautiful distillations of the human experience when it comes to love and they will take you a place where, even if things aren’t good, and thankfully in this selection they are mostly very good, you will have the time and the music enveloping to really think about love, the universe and everything.
“Sleeping Without Me” by Yb.
The sad deaths of the last two weeks of superlative Australian musicians like Archie Roach, Judith Durham (The Seekers) and Olivia Newton-John has underscored once again how vibrantly creative the Aussie music scene has been and continues to be.
Proof of the country’s current musical fecundity comes courtesy of brilliantly talented music artist Yb. who hails from Brisbane, and who has been making waves on the Triple J Unearthed website, the national youth radio broadcaster’s site that’s devoted to discovering and celebrating new talent on the rise.
You can well understand the buzz around Yb. when you listen to the sublimely lo-fi guitar-driven ever-building delights of “Sleeping Without Me” with the artist’s vulnerably emotive voice, full of hope and longing, adding real emotionla urgency to a song about wanting that special someone to be close, espeicially at night.
It’s a dreamy delight, which is fitting given the title and lyrics, which displays an inventive use of vocal playfulness and some production tricks which add real musical and emotional lustre to this luminously lovely and beautifully affecting track which touches the soul as much as it pleases the ears to an almost unquantifiable extent.
“Risk It All” by Yuna
Malaysian singer Yuna has one of those voices that sounds like sunshine on a perfect Spring day.
It’s warm, alive with emotion and richly enveloping and it’s used to devastatingly immersive and warmly comforting effect on “Risk It All”, a song which contains all the romance, musically, vocally and lyrically you could ever ask for.
It’s sounds gorgeously, rapturously dreamy but it’s full to the brim with the languorous loveliness of being wrapped up in the wonders and joys of romantic love which finds perfect expression visually in a clip that is all breezy outdoor beauty and chilled days.
It’s a joy to listen to, the kind of song that feel like all the good and wondrous things in the world poured into 3 1/2 minutes of one of the most affecting odes to love you’re going to hear this year.
“32 Floors” by Låpsley
Speaking of songs packed with emotion, “32 Floors” by Låpsley is a track that feels like an epic journey into the very heart of what it means to love and trust someone so much that you can give over all the demons that beset you and know they will be there for you.
It’s a perfectly distilled description of unconditional, all-encompassing love that is set to a musical arrangement that feels richly expansive and alive while at the times sounding ethereally stripped back that fits just so with the nakedly emotional lyrical intent of the track.
As marriages of music and word go, it’s a gem, and represents a landmark move for the artist.
“… the new single represents ‘the thrill and danger of complete submission. I’m someone that craves ‘giving up my struggle for control’ as an antidote to the intense individuality of my personality.
‘The metaphorical idea of falling off the side of a 32 Floor building and ‘landing in their arms’ is the idea of trust, tinged in an unhealthy lack of fear.'” (Clash magazine)
Marking her first new material since 2020 hen she release Through Water, “32 Floors” is proof of an artist at the height of her creative powers, instilling raw emotional honesty and imaginative musical creativity into a track that cuts right to the heart of what it means to put asie fear and hand yourself to someone you know innately will be there for you without question.
“Big Little” by FELIVAND
FELIVAND is an Aussie artist who channels her inner chilled ’70s R&B diva on the divinely chilled slice of sublime pop that is “Big Little”.
Hailing from Brisbane/Meanjin, singer, songwriter and producer Felicity Vanderveen delivers up, according to her bio on Triple J Unearthed, “a unique brand of organic, textural Alternative Pop, burying shadowy, sombre depths beneath warm, earthen exteriors.”
However you describe it, and honestly that bio is damn near perfect, all poetic brilliance and evocatively arresting language, her music is a peaceful joy to listen to, with “Big Little” rich in musical flourishes, lyrics that speak of being wholly at ease with someone, and promising to stick around till “the big seems little”.
It’s a beautifully moving unconditional commitment to someone special and it wraps you up in the lush beauty of its emotional truthfulness and music so alive and yet so delightfully laidback that it sweeps you in its affirming grasp and doesn’t let you go (not that you will ever want it to).
“Why I Broke Up With You” by Madeline the Person
This time we head to the opposite end of the romantic spectrum with Madeline the Person who hails from Houston, Texas, as she deals with the reasons why she broke up with someone.
While the music is whimsical in one sense, matched with a clip that comes with a certain visual playfulness, “Why I Broke Up With You” goes deep down into the remnants of a relationship that was once vibrant – “I lived so long with someone so uncomfortable in their mind / They fed themself a little poison every day to survive / And that’s not like you, at least I thought” – and has had to be cast aside as an act of self-preservation.
You might expect a break-up song to feel furious and angry, and maybe that’s there somewhere in the mix, but by and large, it feels almost regretful and sorrowful, the hope that existed at the start lies in the regretful wreckage of the relationship.
As goodbyes, “Why I Broke Up With You” is as heart affecting as you’ll find, a beautifully sad goodbye to what might’ve been but which has been lost by someone no longer full present when it really matters.