Wednesday, May 4, 2022 — 3
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Lizzy McAlpine crafts an honest narrative of love and heartbreak on
‘five seconds flat’
In the world of TikTok and playlists,
many artists trying to break into music
are ditching big projects like albums
and EPs and opting for more frequent
single releases to increase their
chances of being heard. Despite these
arguments surrounding algorithms
and playlisting, Lizzy McAlpine’s
latest album, five seconds flat, has seen
widespread success and is a testament
to the power of full-length albums.
Upon release, McAlpine advised fans
to listen to the album start to finish,
writing on Instagram, “i really put a lot
of work into making sure that the track
list was in the right order and the story
that it told was cohesive so i would urge
you to listen through the first time in
order.”
Following McAlpine’s advice and
listening to the 45-minute long album
track-by-track, it’s clear that she put a
lot of care into her storytelling, and the
listening experience is entirely different
when thinking about the songs as a
story arc instead of individual tracks.
The album opens with “doomsday,”
the first single off five seconds flat that
McAlpine released last fall. With the
haunting opening line, “Pull the plug
in September / I don’t wanna die in
June,” the song sets the tone for what’s
to follow and primes listeners for the
nostalgic undertones that permeate the
album.
five seconds flat walks listeners
through the phases of moving on from a
relationship. Starting with melancholic
reflections of a breakup on “an ego
thing,” McAlpine then transitions
into “erase me (feat. Jacob Collier),”
which McAlpine describes as a song
that depicts the “hoe phase,” which
typically follows a breakup. From there,
she moves to “all my ghosts,” a song that
wrestles with the challenges of falling in
love again after being hurt by a previous
partner. Likewise, “reckless driving
(feat. Ben Kessler)” and “firearm” also
explore the idea of past pains inhibiting
trust in new relationships. Even as
McAlpine moves between new forms of
love and mourning, a common thread
always persists: It’s nearly impossible
to completely erase someone’s memory,
even when life continues on.
There’s a pause in this narrative
on “chemtrails,” a song dedicated to
McAlpine’s father, who passed away
two years ago. “I still play with my food,
I’m a child at the grown-up’s table / It’s
so hard to believe, but right now, I feel
stable,” McAlpine croons over a gentle
piano. The song ends with samples
from home videos of McAlpine and her
father from when she was younger.
McAlpine concludes the album
with “orange show speedway,” an
anthemic pop track that is vastly
different from any of its predecessors
on the album. Like “chemtrails,”
“orange show speedway” samples vlogs
from McAlpine’s YouTube channel,
featuring her and her friends. Despite
the energy of this ending track, the
last line brings us full circle and is
a reminder of the album’s central
message:
“When you’re racing head-
first towards something that’ll kill
you in five seconds flat / When I’m
racing head-first towards everything
that I want back.” Whether it’s a past
relationship or a lost family member,
McAlpine brings comfort to those who
are still chasing feelings that have been
lost. While this line doesn’t necessarily
provide the closure one would expect,
it emphasizes the fact that mourning
is not a linear process. Our pasts shape
how we approach future relationships
and life experiences.
KAITLYN FOX
Daily Arts Writer
The movie lover’s guide to graduation
With coming-of-age stories, there’s
often a fascination with senior year of
high school. Graduating from high
school represents the death of grade
school, the inflection point where
you leave your hometown in favor
of college, the epitome of new: new
places, new experiences, new people.
College is the beginning of the rest
of your life; high school graduation
represents the end of everything you
knew.
There are a lot of movies, across
genres, that show high school
graduations. In the past few years,
many outlets made lists of them in
honor of the graduation ceremonies
that were canceled due to the
pandemic. But these movies usually
stop short of showing the next step, as
if college is the happy ending rather
than just the beginning.
When I applied for Daily Arts,
I wrote about Greta Gerwig’s 2017
coming-of-age story, “Lady Bird,”
which came out, aptly enough, when I
was a senior in high school. My friends
and I made plans to watch the movie
with the joke that we would “watch
‘Lady Bird’ and have an existential
crisis together,” but high school got
busy, and we never got around to it.
For my application, I wrote about how
I’m pretty sure “Lady Bird” would’ve
made me incredibly uncomfortable
if I’d watched it as a senior. My main
reasoning is a sequence near the
end of the movie: Lady Bird (Saoirse
Ronan, “Little Women”) is in college
in New York and goes to a party
where she gets drunk, throws up
and finds herself desperately missing
home. It’s a harsh look at college —
not as a happy ending, but a whole
new world to conquer and get used to.
In my opinion, although high
school graduation might be more
symbolically
significant,
college
graduation is exponentially more
terrifying. Most people think of a few
discrete paths after you graduate high
school, whereas the potential post-
college routes, despite being roughly
the same, feel more infinite when
the scale is changed. And instead of
leaving behind a class full of people
that you’ve known for most of your
life, you’re graduating along with
thousands of people you’ve never
met before and a handful of people
that have become the most important
people in your life — like members of
a strange, often stressed, sometimes
intoxicated, consistently loyal family.
This is the last piece that I’m going
to be writing for The Daily before
I graduate, and all I think about is
how I’ll feel when graduation finally
hits. It’s difficult to fully process that
I’m about to leave a place I’ve called
home for four very full, very strange
years. It’s worse to consider that,
even if I return to campus, things
will be irreparably different as soon
as I don my cap and gown and get my
diploma in the mail. And so, like most
self-respecting film writers, I turn to
movies in times of difficulty.
Like
many
rational,
older
Generation Z’ers, “graduation movie”
makes me think of a classic: “High
School Musical 3: Senior Year.”
Ignoring the cheesy tone of the movie
and the logistical inconsistencies
(how exactly does Gabriella start
going to Stanford before high school
is even finished?), it’s a sweet movie
that encapsulates the feeling of trying
to hold on to the final moments before
you leave. The characters all seem to
be stuck in a nostalgia before they’ve
even graduated, and I’m finding
myself in some of the same spirals.
What will I remember about my time
here before I leave? What will it be
like to return?
It’s surprising how relevant the
songs of “HSM 3” feel in the context
of graduating, in any sense. Troy’s
regularly-scheduled,
angst-ridden
“what do I do now?” song, “Scream,”
demonstrates the difficulty of making
decisions that will affect the rest of
your life. With Gabriella’s regularly-
scheduled, dramatic “I have to leave
now” song, “Walk Away,” the lyrics
(like “No goodbyes ’cause I can’t bear
to say it”) hit a little too hard when
you’re ready to say goodbyes of your
own. Not to mention that part of
me wants to come back to campus
in a few years and recreate my own
version of “The Boys are Back.”
I also watched another memorable
graduation
movie,
“Booksmart,”
which follows two girls who, trying to
make up for an academically-focused
and socially-lacking high school
experience, bounce between raucous
parties the night before graduation.
The story comes to a climax in
dramatic fashion: Molly (Beanie
Feldstein, “Impeachment: American
Crime Story”) bails Amy (Kaitlyn
Dever, “Dear Evan Hansen”) out of
jail, drives a flashy, flame-covered
car through a fence, passionately
kisses a boy onstage in front of the
entire senior class and then delivers
a sweet, “unscripted” valedictorian
speech.
KARI ANDERSON
Daily Arts Writer
Read more at michigandaily.com
Read more at michigandaily.com
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