Alessia Cara, The Underrated Voice of Adolescence
Hearing Alessia Cara’s debut single “Here” in the spring of 2015 changed my life—as much as can happen to any other 14-year-old. At the time, I was a sophomore in high school, insecure and self-conscious and ill-dressed, and Cara was relatively unknown and a newcomer. We had never met before she became mainstream, and likely never will but it didn’t matter because she wrote and sang about an experience that I couldn’t quite put into words.
Like her, I was never quite comfortable at high school parties (at least, the few that I was invited to). I’d watch these classic teen movies where adult actors played teenagers drinking alcohol and smoking in empty parents’ houses like it was something I should’ve been doing too, the same as some of my classmates. It felt weird that the most exciting thing I ever did was write poetry and sometimes go off-campus with friends for lunch. And just when I was most at odds with the media's stereotypical portrayal of adolescence, Cara came along with her fast-paced vocal performance, relatable lyrics and catchy production, and, like Billboard said at the time, made “being an introvert finally cool again.”
Her debut studio album Know-It-All became my soundtrack for the rest of my high school years. She related to my hopeless romantic side with songs like “I’m Yours” and helped me take ownership of myself, my beauty, and my flaws with “Scars To Your Beautiful.” It was Alessia Cara’s world and I was happy to live in it.
For me, so much of her appeal lies within her distinctive voice and lyricism. You listen to any of her songs and you know that it’s her because of the textured, deep, Amy Winehouse-reminiscent tone in her voice. She’s careful with her songwriting, focusing on specific details and beautiful, poetic wording to tell a story:
And I'll spend my life penning my song, my song
And the verses I write will speak for me
Good girls don't make history
So I may never be what you assume.
Her production is always flawless and surprising—exploring soul, R&B, and pop elements to fit the fluidity of her voice, sometimes purposefully contrary to her lyrics. She may be a pop musician but six years on, and Cara doesn’t sound like anyone else on the radio today.
The same holds true with her newest project, In the Meantime. Though she focuses less on the teenage experience (because after all, she is 25), the ITM era spotlights her growing maturity in everything from her songwriting to her production to her themes. In “Bluebird,” the jazz-inspired backing track exudes this romantic, almost Parisian feel. But looking at the lyrics, you realize that it’s actually a love song to herself following a break-up and how she’s experiencing feelings of loss and grief but is ultimately moving on.
Or take a listen to “Voice in My Head,” which is my favorite track on the album and explores her overthinking tendencies, insecurities, anxieties, fear of burn-out, and wish for a stronger will:
There's an evil figurine in my brain
Windin’ me up and pullin' all my strings
Like I'm some kind of paper doll lackin' backbone
Made of elasticity, turns out it's just me.
Not to mention the genius exhibited on “Best Days,” where she walks us through her existential crisis and worries about if her best days are the ones she’s living right now and if the rest of her life is all downhill from here.
If that doesn’t sound like adulthood, I don’t know what does.
Now more than ever, it’s time to appreciate Cara’s craft in every song of her discography, not just those on this album. While the two of us may not be teenagers anymore, she is still powerfully exploring themes universal to the adolescent experience—growing up, finding our identity, feeling stuck in the same place, reconciling romance with a need for independence. Because no matter how old we get, I’m finding, same as her, that we never really stop asking those questions of ourselves or of others. That maybe it’s forever and, ultimately, just another part of being human.