With the leaves beginning to fall and Gilbert’s Café (sometimes) serving up pumpkin-spiced lattes, it’s time to embrace the changing seasons and reintroduce my fall essential albums to my music rotation. These are my autumn classics.
Stick Season – Noah Kahan
Walk into the newsroom on a Wednesday night and there is a 99.9% chance this album is playing from the design corner.
Noah Kahan’s folk-pop album — and its deluxe edition — is utter perfection. The amount of love Kahan has for his hometown and upbringing, even when he is singing about feeling stuck in it, is palpable.
Kahan’s ability to pack single, simple lines with so much familiarity and depth should be studied. My personal favorites are “Ooh, this town is for the record now/The intersection got a Target/And they’re calling it downtown” and “That I broke a bone that never healed in my hand/So, when I hold her close, I might loosen my grip/But I won’t ever let her go/I won’t ever let her go.”
Favorite songs: “Forever,” “New Perspective” and “The View Between Villages (Extended)”
evermore – Taylor Swift
As The Lafayette’s resident Taylor Swift beat reporter, it would be remiss to not include one of her albums on this list — for me, fall and “evermore” are synonymous.
“evermore,” the often neglected younger sister to 2020’s “folklore,” is an exploration of characters. Swift embodies a revenge murderer, the ex of an up-and-coming star and a runaway fiancé in one of her most creative, fun and deeply misunderstood projects to date.
Her collaborations on this album with Bon Iver, HAIM and The National play off of Swift’s interest in storytelling and offer an opportunity to include different perspectives to the same story. However, the best collaboration of this album is “marjorie,” a touching tribute to her late grandmother in which Swift utilizes recordings of Marjorie’s voice so that she can sing with her. Their harmonies are gorgeous, especially when Swift sings the song live on the “Eras Tour.”
Favorite songs: “happiness,” “champagne problems” and “tolerate it”
five seconds flat – Lizzy McAlpine
Lizzy McAlpine’s sophomore album, “five seconds flat,” is hauntingly sweet. Beginning with the death of a long-term relationship, described through a metaphor of her own murder by her former partner, the album explores McAlpine’s acceptance of the relationship’s end and her jumping into the dating scene.
One of my favorite aspects of this album is its production, particularly McAlpine’s choice to cut out the backtrack on songs like “an ego thing” and “doomsday.” Her voice is so beautiful and rich on its own, giving these moments an extra punch and underscoring her loneliness and confusion.
Favorite songs: “doomsday,” “reckless driving (feat. Ben Kessler)” and “firearm”
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (soundtrack)
Hear me out.
“The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” movie is my favorite villain origin story and, along with its “Hunger Games” predecessors, feels distinctly fall to me. There is nothing like a little critical display of American consumerism to get you into the Halloween spirit!
Rachel Zegler is a generational talent and her performance on this album is exceptional, leading the soundtrack with her ability to expertly swing from haunting to folksy country fun, great for any autumn day. Having someone else in this role might have made some of the songs sound repetitive, but Zegler offers new breath to each track.
Olivia Rodrigo’s song “Can’t Catch Me Now” is a perfect tie-in to the film, expanding on its final moments and giving the audience some hope for the titular “songbird.”
Favorite songs: “The Ballad of Lucy Gray Baird,” “Nothing You Can Take From Me” and “Lucy Gray (part 1)”
