Good Riddance - Gracie Abrams

Good Riddance album cover. Image sourced from https://twitter.com/gracieabrams/status/1622642027962974208.

Gracie Abrams is a force to be reckoned with. The 23-year-old singer-songwriter has only just released her debut studio album, and yet there’s a sort of age-old strength to her music, a sense of presence in the way she packs a punch with her writing and vulnerability.

Abrams shared Good Riddance with the world on February 24, and the 12-track album, produced solely by Aaron Dessner of The National, comes in just under an hour. It’s highly emotional, touchingly introspective, and achingly sad. It’s also a strong addition to the artist’s already solid discography. 

Her debut EP, minor, was released in July 2020—containing a personal favorite, “21,” as well as what is her most streamed song on Spotify, “I miss you, I’m sorry.” Rather impressively, the track has accumulated over 138 million streams and counting. Her second EP was released in November 2021: This is What It Feels Like. It’s some of her best and strongest work. Abrams shines when facing the uncertain, the heartache, the regret, the bitterness, and everything in between. Good Riddance further proves that.

Abrams’ most recent creation once more embraces the melancholy, the sadness, and the strength of emotion. But this time around, a few other elements stand out to me.

The first is the lyricism. Good Riddance relies on language and lyrics that cut through melodic haze with the precision of a sharpened knife. That is to say, her words feel noticeably direct. And the effect is initially jarring and even a little questionable—until it’s not. Then, it becomes impactful in a very good way. Then, there’s something terribly compelling about the visuality of “I'm a rollercoaster / You’re a dead-end street” in “Full-machine.” Then, “Last night, I spiraled alone in the kitchen” in “I should hate you” brings you to both cold kitchen floor tiles and a visceral loneliness. Then, the lines, “I met a girl once / She sorta ripped me open” from “Amelie” can just about tear you apart, too. Abrams ultimately makes this kind of simplicity work.

The album also arguably leans more toward music as experiential. Intentional or unintentional, Good Riddance isn’t the kind of album you can casually listen to. Instead, it is at its best, its most powerful, most potent in the late hours of the night. It is the most crushing when listened to alone, and it is the most heart-wrenching when rain is pouring outside. The album just doesn’t fare as well in everyday scenarios; Good Riddance has a tendency to dampen spirits then.

There is only one aspect of the album that I have serious contention with, and it’s the way the self-awareness comes up short. It’s a shame because of how raw and real Abrams can be when it comes to being self-critical and expressing vulnerabilities and mistakes. “Difficult” is one of the album’s singles, and it was truthfully somewhat difficult to listen to. When Abrams explicitly expresses, “And I’ve been thinkin’ / If I move out this year, I’ll feel my parents slippin’ / Away and also, I’m just scared of that commitment” and mourns in the chorus, “Oh, I know / Spiralin' is miserable / I should probably go back home / Why does that feel difficult, difficult?”, I can’t help but feel a little unimpressed. Purely sonically, “Difficult” is a fun time—the rhythmic drum-machine beats and charming piano tones are worth appreciating—but when you think critically for just a moment, you realize that these sentiments about uncertainty, anxiety, and growing up aren’t really relatable. Fearing your parents slipping away, stressing about moving out, and being afraid of commitment aren’t quite the same when you’ve grown up incredibly wealthy and your parents are JJ Abrams and Katie McGrath. Even the idea of what or where your home is isn’t the same.

And it’s rather clear she lacks an understanding of nepotism. In a Rolling Stone article, she rightly notes that “there are a million visible and even more invisible advantages to having family members who are in any entertainment industry.” Unfortunately, she then says, “I know how hard I work, and I know how separate I’ve kept [my parents] from every conversation about anything careerwise, but of course you can understand what it looks like from the outside.” It comes off as silly, as if she’s somehow exempt from advantages or truly separate from nepotism’s reach. Abrams is admittedly one of my favorite “nepo babies,” and she is in many ways likable and relatable. But when you think about her upbringing, her access to opportunity, her ability to dedicate to her craft without the kind of pressures most artists—or people—have to deal with, it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth—an unwelcome reality check. Needless to say, “Difficult” is not my favorite track on the album. 

That all being said, Abrams is very much talented. I believe it, and there’s something to be said about how this album is so very “Gracie Abrams.” It feels like her, and it feels like something she would make. Good Riddance has that sharp, on-the-verge-of-breaking-down, retrospective cognizance to it. The knowing way she shares, “You have to laugh before you start to cry” in “Will you cry?” makes me think of her live performances of “Rockland” from This is What It Feels Like. Abrams gives this iconic, terribly self-aware headshake as she sings, “I’m sure that I would like her / If I were slightly nicer.”

Good Riddance is also just beautiful. It’s deeply confessional and intimate, and Abrams does an artful job of packaging all that is jagged and ugly and sharp into soft songs with the sense of something simmering just underneath the surface. So far, standout Good Riddance tracks include “Best,” “I know it won’t work,” “Full machine,” and “This is what the drugs are for.” But she most certainly finishes the album strong with “Right now.” It’s a nearly six-minute-long outro about leaving your past life behind. The second verse truly grabbed me: “Pretty far from the ocean / Never thought that would hurt / Every lake here is frozen / Which is makin' it worse / This is somebody's hometown / Never been here before.” The emotional effect is near devastating. And of course, Abrams just keeps going, and her subsequent repetition of “I feel like myself right now” is gloriously painful and healing all at once.
Good Riddance is emotive pop that tightropes on the lines of folk, alternative, and indie in a broad sense—with synths, fingerpicking, and guitar backing. Perhaps the production could have been a little bolder and a little more experimental, and perhaps Abrams could have dared to be a little more self-aware, but overall, Good Riddance is, simply put, good.