Funnily enough, I didn’t realise the Willow of this album was Willow Smith until just now as I sat down to write this post. This album is definitely entirely unlike Whip My Hair, a song that I still genuinely love over a decade later.
So. Coping Mechanism. On the first listen, I strongly disliked it. After a few more listens, that faded to just a slight dislike. And now, after having it on repeat during work for the last two days, I can fairly confidently say that I’m neutral about it. I get what the album is going for, and why people might like it, but it wasn’t for me. Part of the issue was that guitars, drums, and that type of scream-singing all feature pretty heavily on this album, and for me, the last album I listened to — Reason in Decline by Archers of Loaf — just did those better. The other problem was that I wasn’t in the right emotional state for this. I’d probably need to be in a more angsty frame of mind to properly enjoy this.
There are 11 songs. I didn’t particularly like or dislike any of them. Here are the ones I appreciated the most.
WHY?
Favorite lyric: ”I just wanna, I just wanna stop asking myself why… I just gotta, I just gotta stop questioning my life”
I loved all the lyrics that are sung in that… falsetto? Head voice? I’m not exactly sure what the term is. I really liked the chorus especially — the lyrics are pretty and the way they’re sung is is pretty.
ur a stranger
Favorite lyric: “the least you could do is find someone else, the least you could do…
This is the song that made me feel something. It evokes exactly the heartbreak and hurt and loss that the lyrics are about. The betrayal feels tangible. The drums are done well, and surprisingly, I quite liked the interlude with the screaming.
