Lizzy McAlpine

I discovered Lizzy McAlpine, like many others, scrolling on TikTok one night. She was singing a song she’s since said she’ll never release, but I was captivated. Ruined is about the memories that she associates with her favorite band, and how she can no longer listen to it because of a past romantic relationship. She was sitting on her bathroom floor, singing and playing the guitar, and the acoustics of her voice were just gorgeous. I immediately rushed to look her up on Spotify to hear more.

Lizzy makes pop music, but it’s all melancholic and with crazy good vocals. I’ve also seen a bunch of videos of her performing live, and she sounds EXACTLY the same, which is absolutely insane. A large part of my sad playlists consists of her music because she has such a good voice, and a lot of brutally devastating lyrics.

My favorite album of hers is her most recent, five seconds flat. I’ve listened to all 14 tracks since it was released in April of last year and it’s just so good. The last song on the album, orange show speedway, is about the deja vu of being back at a place where you were once with a romantic partner. Every time I listen to it I can hear the anxiety radiating through her voice as she describes looking around the crowd for them. It ends with a voice memo, like a lot of her songs do, which I think really adds a personal touch and allows listeners to be let in on the background and the production of the song.

The song that I most highly recommend to anyone who hasn’t listened to her music is reckless driving. It tells the story of a girl and a boy who are in a car, and Lizzy really wants him to keep his eyes on the road, claiming she is a “careful

driver”, but his love and admiration of her means that he keeps his eyes on her. This song features Ben Kessler as the “reckless driver”, and it does such a good job of going back and forth between them. It tells a story about anxiety in a relationship, and being afraid to “crash”. The bridge is also really cool, and the song completely changes tone and tempo while Lizzy sings about not wanting this to kill them. My favorite part of the song is at the end, they’re both singing their part of the chorus, arguing about their love to each other, and then it ends abruptly, signifying that the issue never got resolved and they “crashed”.

I am going to see her in concert when I go home in May and I am so excited. I intend on getting there really early, because I got General Admission tickets and I want to be in the front (much to the dismay of the infinite amounts of short people that will probably be there). I think the fact that she has such a good voice naturally will make for a cooler and ore intimate concert, since. it can be played acoustically.