Published on Jul 19, 2004
I’ve written here before about expectations and how they can
warp perceptions and create surprise where maybe there shouldn’t be
any. The fact is, I’ve been favorably impressed before by the
precocious talents of young singer-songwriters like
Michelle Branch, and, despite my
fairly typical affinity for the underdog, I’m not averse to giving
a major-label artist props when they earn them. All that said, I
still find myself grinning with surprise as I announce to the world
that this album absolutely kicked my ass.
Maria Mena is an 18-year-old singer-songwriter from Norway, and
Sony’s hoped-for Next Big Thing here in the States. A few songs on
this album — her American debut — previously saw light in Europe
as part of her 2001 hit album
Another Phase, recorded when she was just 15. In terms of
musical style, it’s pretty mainstream pop-rock, nothing terribly
remarkable in terms of production or arrangements. In terms of
lyrics and songwriting, however, it’s simply one of the best albums
I’ve heard this year.
Mena’s appeal is the way her songs so artfully capture a certain
time in life — those super-charged middle teens, where life
dissolves into a series of intensely-felt moments filled with
awkwardness and desperation, surging hormones and flagging
self-esteem. Singers having been writing songs about not fitting in
for as long as music has existed, it seems, but rarely with this
combination of raw vulnerability and sure-handed emotional
truth.
You can sense it right from the start. In the opener and first
single, “You’re The Only One,” Mena presents the verses as
spoken-word asides coming straight from the narrator’s giddy head,
before launching into the soaring, hook-laden chorus. Mena’s
sometimes-startling frankness only serves to underscore the
poignancy of verses like this: “I hope you can forgive me for that
time / When I put my hand between your legs / And said it was small
/ ‘Cause it’s really not at all / I guess there’s just a part of me
that likes to bring you down / Just to keep you around / ‘Cause the
day you realize how amazing you are / You’re gonna leave me.”
By turns flirty and petulant, raw and vulnerable, this is as
true a portrait of a teenaged girl’s inner life as I’ve experienced
anywhere outside of an Annie Lamott novel. And yes, the echoes of
Alanis Morissette are clear right away — this is a young female
singer-songwriter of prodigious talent who lacks only one thing:
fear.
Mena sings with similarly bracing intimacy about the impact of
her parent’s divorce (“My Lullaby”) and the burden of expectations
she feels from her father (“Blame It On Me”). The latter she pulls
off particularly well by having the guts and perspective to write
the song from her father’s point of view. As compelling as these
moments are, though, they’re deeply personal, and therefore perhaps
not quite as universal in appeal as the intense vulnerability Mena
displays on the amazing “Just A Little Bit” and “Sorry.”
“Just A Little Bit” is a catalog of every teenaged girl’s
insecurities that simply makes your heart ache with recognition as
the narrator wishes she was “Just a little bit stronger / Just a
little bit wiser / Just a little less needy… Just a little
bit pretty / Just a little more aware / Just a little bit thinner /
And maybe I’d get there.” In between these choruses lie verses
filled with images that slap you in the face with the emotional
price some girls pay trying too hard to fit in and be cool:
“Clearly, clearly I remember / Pulling up my shirt / Staring blank
ahead / Clearly, clearly I remember / Days of useless crying /
Almost feeling dead.”
“Sorry” is another devastating piece of emotional truth-telling,
a very pretty, very raw acoustic ballad about an unrequited love.
“Why can’t you love me, I’ll change for you, I’ll play the part,”
Mena sings, and the saddest part is, you sense this song’s narrator
is so vulnerable that she really would give up her very identity in
exchange for the smallest affirmation. It’s of course possible for
baring one’s soul to come off as maudlin or self-pitying, but you
won’t find a single misstep in that direction here. Mena’s candor
and clarity in the act of sharing her innermost self with the world
invest this album with an emotional resonance that’s rare and
precious.
While
White Turns Blue isn’t going to be mistaken for a Phish
album, it does offer some musical variety. Mena executes the
quiet/loud, hard/soft thing superbly on “Take You With Me” and
“Your Glasses,” proving that she sounds equally at home rocking out
as playing gentler love songs. Somewhere in the middle, she attacks
the juking nightclub-jazz experiment “Lose Control” like a pro,
absolutely nailing the vocal, and you realize this girl has no fear
for a reason — as Reggie Jackson once famously said, “It ain’t
bragging if you can do it.”
I’ll grant you, my perceptions of this album may be colored
slightly by having a 15-year-old daughter of my own — it’s hard
not to be touched by songs that seem to speak from your own child’s
soul. Be that as it may, I believe
White Turns Blue is the work of a remarkable new voice.
Maria Mena, I am your fan.