Alessia Cara – Love & Hyperbole

[Live Your Life]

[Live Your Life]

First listen:

www.npr.org/2015/11/05/454316272/first-listen-alessia-cara-know-it-all

[Heart Shaped Box]

I liked most of it. Her voice is so crisp and the writing is pretty good for her age.

[Live Your Life]

The best songs on the album are definitely the songs that have already been released. Having heard the whole thing, "I'm Yours" should be her second single.

[SHOOTER]

Seventeen
Here
Outlaws
Four Pink Walls
Overdose
Scars to Your Beautiful
Here [2:00 AM Version]

I love her voice and I think she's got a strong sense of hook and melody. I would've preferred a few less glossy, more raw records along the lines of Here but I can't wait to see how she expands on her sound in the future.

[Live Your Life]

[Active Aggressive]

I had a feeling she would be another Tori Kelly, whose talent far surpasses the cookie-cutter, bland pop material given her and it appears I was right. Hopefully, she sticks around enough to become her own artist and deliver more on the promise of songs like Here and I'm Yours and Outlaws.

[SHOOTER]

Album projected to debut with 19-22k (27-30k SPS).

I'm still impressed at how quickly she was able to get an EP and album out while her single is still on the rise; one of the few major label successes for new artists this year IMO. Also very interested to find out what the next single will be; Here is an anomaly on the album.

[Live Your Life]

I think they released the album a little prematurely. I'm not a fan of January releases, in general, but she's the type of artist that I think could have benefited from it.

[Snowbeast]

Album is alright. "Here" if definitely the best song. Not the most solid debut I've ever heard, but not bad. I don't think it does the job of defining her as an artist, which in my opinion, is the ultimate goal of a debut era. After listening to it, I still don't really know who she is. In LOVE with I'm Yours, Here, Seventeen and Stone. Might need to grow on the rest.

[Live Your Life]

AllMusic gives the album 4/5 stars:

The teenage wallflower anthem "Here," Alessia Cara's debut for Def Jam, was released in May 2015 and sounded nothing like the hits -- such as the Weeknd's "Earned It," Omarion's "Post to Be," and Rihanna's "B**** Better Have My Money" -- that were at or around the top of Billboard's R&B chart. Even with instant recognition of the Isaac Hayes sample that drives it, "Here" sounded distinct, not only because its tracing of social anxieties was so palpable, but also because Cara sounded remarkably poised for her age. Three months later, the song appeared on Four Pink Walls, the debut EP from the Canadian singer and songwriter. None of the other four songs eclipsed that Top Ten R&B single, but each one of them was sturdy, fusing and switching between smart pop and R&B constructions as Cara sang about growing up and falling in love. The EP closed with the title track, a melodious and triumphant piece of hip-hop soul where Cara reflected on her early success, knowing she had it in her while in a state of dazed disbelief nonetheless. Four Pink Walls is repeated as the first half of the full-length Know-It-All. Its all-new second half begins with "Wild Things," a theme for a clique of mild-mannered misfits, and concludes with the tactful "Scars to Your Beautiful," addressed to girls and women with a negative self-image. Between those two numbers, Cara straightforwardly longs and seeks stability, and then uses substance abuse and amusement park metaphors for a bumpy relationship. At all times, Cara is levelheaded, wise beyond her late-teen years -- something that comes across through her observations -- and she has a measured delivery and faintly grainy voice to match. Discovered through YouTube, she was smartly set up with Andrew "Pop" Wansel and Warren "Oak" Felder, whose input here as producers and fellow songwriters complements what they've done beside the likes of Chrisette Michele, Alicia Keys, Tamia, and especially Elle Varner. Upcoming songwriter Coleridge Tillman (aka Sebastian Kole) also contributes. Going by the level of potential shown here, it's evident that Cara will eventually need a lot less creative assistance.

Pitchfork gives the album a 5.5/10:

Alessia Cara has become a star very quickly. Her coming out party, which came in the form of the loner anthem “Here,” exposed a receptive world to a soulful R&B sound. Cara’s lament about a less-than-enjoyable party made her a poster child for Introvert Nation at a time when shyness—thanks to writers like Susan Cain and various digital media outlets — has been recast as an identity unto itself.

Def Jam, Cara’s label, soon released more of her songs, several of them country-tinged pop that recall artists like Taylor Swift and Haim. In Cara’s case, that sound tends to go hand in hand with bland, vaguely “rebellious” lyrics. In the pop songs on her Four Pink Walls EP—including the potential megahits “Seventeen” and “I’m Yours”—Cara’s appealing personality is sometimes hard to unearth from under the layers of pop gloss that have been poured on top of her.

But the EP seems to have been what the label was looking for, at least as evidenced by the fact that its five songs have been transposed onto the front of Cara’s debut album, Know-It-All, in the same order, with very few changes made. The speed at which Cara is being groomed and prompted to put out new releases feels distasteful if sadly not unfamiliar, something like an AAU prospect being coaxed to go pro before he’s entirely ready.

In many ways, though, Cara is ready. Her winning personality shines in recent public appearances (watch her slay “Here” on “Late Night on Seth Meyers”), and her voice, with its warmth and character, can transform a so-so song into something far more compelling. She’s able to mine an otherwise simple ballad like “Stone,” from the second half of Know-It-All, as if it were a rich emotional deposit, bringing pathos even to a bland line like, “I think I think too much.”

Though “Stone” is the only song that explicitly features Sebastian Kole, he contributed plenty as one of the album’s producers and a co-writer. Kole, who has been in the factory songwriting system for a little while now also makes his own music. Two things jump out at a first-time listener: his gorgeous voice and painful earnestness. That helps explain why he’s helped construct such compelling vocal showcases for Cara, but also why her punchiness has been overtaken by something more cuddly. (“Wild Things,” which transforms Cara’s grousing into a lame children’s book reference is the most obvious example.)

A Times profile of Cara from May reveals something of Kole’s approach. As a songwriting exercise, he compelled Cara to write confessionals as if they were meant for no one but her — and then email them to him. The sound of those emails may well be reflected in the soppy ballad “Stars.” “I need you, baby I need to, let down my guard, and give you my scars/ Open up my heart and we could be stars,” she sings. It’s easy to see how this form of diaristic writing could be confused with the honesty that made “Here” such a winner. But writing from the heart does not automatically imbue lyrics with depth.

Never is it more apparent that the factory approach is not allowing Cara to fulfill her potential than on “Scars To Your Beautiful.” The first verse is so arresting that I’m tempted to just quote it in full. It’s about a woman who deeply wishes to be beautiful and feels that she isn’t. The verse ends on a showstopping, deeply upsetting line: “She tries to cover up her pain, and cut her woes away/ Cause covergirls don’t cry after their face is made." It is frustrating, though sadly inevitable given Know-It-All’s tendencies, that the chorus then reverts to uplifting pablum. The hook forces itself not only to redeem the devastation of the verse, but to do so cloyingly, without any kind of subtlety or empathy for the subject it rendered so well.

The industry has always wanted its pop stars to be all things to all people, and it’s easier to be kind and inspiring than it is to write songs that can be difficult to hear. But generality is the enemy of good songwriting, which, on some level, Cara clearly knows. She urged her label to release “Here” as a debut single and thankfully they listened. As she gets older, her voice should get stronger, on her own songs, and in fighting to get the right ones made

Know-It-All tour dates:

01/15 Montreal, QC - Corona Theatre
01/16 Toronto, ON - Danforth Music Hall
01/22 Boston, MA - Brighton Music Hall
01/23 Philadelphia, PA - Theatre of the Living Arts.
01/24 Washington, DC - 9:30 Club
01/26 New York, NY - Webster Hall
01/28 Cleveland, OH - Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum
01/29 Chicago, IL - Metro
01/30 Detroit, MI - St. Andrews Hall
02/01 Atlanta, GA - Terminal West @ King Plow Arts Center
02/02 Nashville, TN - Mercy Lounge
02/04 Dallas, TX - Granada Theater
02/05 Houston, TX - Warehouse Live Studio
02/06 Austin, TX - Emo's
02/09 Phoenix, AZ - The Crescent Ballroom
02/11 San Francisco, CA - The Fillmore
02/12 Los Angeles, CA - El Rey Theatre
03/29 Vancouver, BC - Vogue Theatre
03/31 Calgary, AB - Macewan Ballroom
04/01 Edmonton, AB - Union Hall

[Live Your Life]

[SHOOTER]

Debuts at #12 with 21k (#9 with 33k SPS) per HITS.

[divasummer]

I just got this cd and wasn't expecting to like it as much as I do.
It's a lot more pop/nb than I was expecting it to be.
For some reason I thought it was going to be more indie Rnb with Alt undertones.
I Love "I'm Yours" so far and I do enjoy most of the more up beat stuff.
I'll have to start to take more notice when she performs live.

[SHOOTER]

After 30 weeks, Here is #1 on Hot R&B Songs (and #7 on Hot 100).

[Glove Slap]

She came in second behind Jack Garratt on BBC's Sound of 2016 list.

[SHOOTER]

Wild Things is the second single.

[wavey.✨️]

"Here" rises 9-6 on the Hot 100.

[Live Your Life]

[Dylan :)]

It's weird the majority of them didn't know it

[Linnethia Monique]

I love how she had her actual best friends and family in the video instead of just some nobody extras.

[SHOOTER]

Know-It-All and Wild Things both certified Gold this week.

[irice22]

Has anyone else noticed that Alessia Cara must be a huge fan of Labrinth's "Beneath Your Beautiful"? She loves to use adjectives as nouns all the time.

[gbaby]

So...when are they releasing "I'm Yours"?

[Sir Benji]

Oct 29, 2016 8:46:25 GMT -5 gbaby said:

So...when are they releasing "I'm Yours"?

Wasn't that out before "Here"?

[Az Paynter]

As a single, he meant. Anyway as far as 4th singles go I think it's better that waits until next year. 'Scars' is currently in the process of blowing up, so it's better to ride out the rest of the year on that song and begin rolling out the next single January/February.

[toomuchboy]

She'll be doing the End Credits version of a song from Disney's new film, Moana, called "How Far I'll Go."

[Kurt]

Oct 29, 2016 20:54:05 GMT -5 toomuchboy said:

She'll be doing the End Credits version of a song from Disney's new film, Moana, called "How Far I'll Go."

It came out on Friday, so you can hear it below:

[SHOOTER]

Even though the single choices have been odd, I'm glad STYB cracked the top-40; no longer a "one hit wonder".

[Kanenrá:ke]

Got to see her on the 1st and I loved her show! Going by crowd reaction I think "Overdose" should be the 4th single. It was easily the biggest reaction other than "Here". It was even bigger than "Wild Things" or "Scars To Your Beautiful".