Listening to an album start to finish can often feel strangely laborious to me. Maybe the high commitment (which is no more than an hour and a half) feels not worth it or, god forbid, I fear I won’t fully understand the narrative arc of the tracklist. Or maybe I’m scared that I’ll feel too much.
Excitement for the solar eclipse was growing, I had a dream about my ex-boyfriend the night prior, and I was feeling emotionally reckless. I decided to listen to and write about Older—the newest and third album of accomplished 24-year-old musician, Lizzy McAlpine—released April 5, 2024. What the hell, I reasoned. I’ll listen to the whole album, just for shits. It’s only 45 minutes. I might not even cry! Right?
Wrong. A mere minute and forty seconds into my listening experience, I had to pause the album, remove my headphones, and take a good, long exhale. I knew, then, that Older would inevitably lead me to feel (perhaps too much) but this time, I didn’t feel scared. McAlpine gently guides her listener through a journey of love and loss, her tender vocals perfectly softening any harsh truths or heartbreaking lyrics. At first glance (or listen), Older seems effortless and simple, as if its songs came pouring out of McAlpine in one go. With more careful consideration, however, I soon realized that Older is wiser, more complex, thoughtful, and emotionally charged than I could have anticipated. McAlpine might only be 24, but just like most young women I know, she is not to be underestimated in her work ethic or emotional, intellectual, or philosophical capacity.
Skillfully produced by Mason Stoops and Ryan Lernan, Older shepherds its listeners through a sonic topography of beginnings and endings. The tonal equivalent of a lush, meditative landscape (the album’s cover and promo feature deep green trees, saturated waters, and rocky shores), Older situates listeners both in McAlpine’s reality and in a realm of the metaphysical. McAlpine accompanies grounded lyrical anecdotes with existential thinking (and dreamy melodies). It’s hard to imagine listening to McAlpine’s album while successfully multitasking; the 14-track LP (Long Play) demands full attention, full thinking, and most importantly, full feelings, creating a trance-like, cathartic listening experience.
Though Older’s lyrics challenge us to stop and reflect, the album’s coherence keeps us soaring along. McAlpine’s music places us within moments of vivid sensation and memory—road trips through shimmering Vermont forests, shy summer camp touches, first loves, first heartbreaks, the bittersweet feeling of knowing you’re growing up and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. Through Older, we are softly pushed to reckon with grief for a first, second, third, fourth, millionth time.
The album’s opener, “The Elevator,” is keenly named: ascending and descending melodies paired with concise lyrics, a straightforward piano part, and lush harmonies. “The Elevator” perfectly prepares listeners for a no-fuss album. Despite being an evidently smart body of work, Older is still accessible in its listening. Both for the more musically inclined and for the everyday listener, Older discards the need for elusive lyrics or superfluous instrumentation: the strength of McAlpine’s work lies in its relatability. Although McAlpine utilizes personalized anecdotal elements in her writing, Older, more than her previous work, also employs more abstract language, leaving room for a maturing listener to grow alongside McAlpine. Her lyrics foster a space for reading between the lines, self-insertion, and a re-imagining of possible pasts, presents, and futures.
Track five, “All Falls Down,” for example, makes use of both broader lyrical strokes (“It all falls down on you”) and hyper specific examples (“22 was a panic attack”); McAlpine pulls us out of ourselves, towards her own narrative, while also ushering us inwards to moments of self-reflection.
In “Drunk, Running,” McAlpine muses on toxic habits, toxic thoughts, and toxic relationships. She bravely sings: “What if it was all my fault / What if I drove you to it?” To me, “Drunk Running” is emotionally reminiscent of realizing the gravity of a past mistake; the song’s dissonant melodic twists arrive abruptly and uncomfortably. “Make a person out of memories / They won’t live up to it,” McAlpine shares, both in warning and in confession.
“Broken Glass,” one of my personal favorites on the album, cuts deep to anyone who has ever loved the wrong person. Can pleasure exist without pain? Pain without pleasure? Is heartbreak inherent to experiences of love? The song’s bridge—stunning and explosive—is introduced by breathtaking instrumentals, destined to be earth-shattering in a live rendition. A small but mighty chorus, “We started with the end / Broken glass, again, again,” morphs subtly into “We’re coming to the end / Breaking glass.” McAlpine speaks to a universal feeling of knowing something is going to end, but not knowing exactly when that end will come. The song’s outro stretches on for twenty seconds longer than anticipated, mirroring the unease and fear of a toxic romantic relationship.
“Older” is ostensibly the simplest song out of the 14; as the album’s first released single, however, fans should expect it to pack a punch, in classic McAlpine fashion (think “All My Ghosts” or “Ceilings,” two of McAlpine’s most popular single releases). The track thematically encapsulates the album’s emotional core—“Mom’s getting older / I’m wanting it back”—left my heart trembling. What a beautifully, devastating line from a beautifully, devastating album. “Thought I would come to my senses / Wish I was stronger somehow / Wish it was easy / Somewhere, I lost all my senses / I wish I knew what the end is.” How can she say so much in so few words? What better a source to speak to the experience of growing up, the grief of leaving youth behind, than someone squarely in the middle of coming-of-age?
Written over the span of three years, Older carefully and precisely crafts a complicated narrative of self-discovery and existential realization. Alongside McAlpine, we explore the transience of a moment, of a relationship, of life, of ourselves. Older feels like a middle finger to anyone who has ever tried to compartmentalize a young woman’s experience with heartbreak, grief, or growing up. In listening to Older, it is impossible to deny McAlpine’s full personhood; her writing gives voice to the complex identities and emotions of young adults (specifically young women) in their early twenties.
To me, “Better Than This” is the album’s standout. If I wasn’t already misty-eyed in the stacks of the Rock while listening to the album for the first time, I was full on crying (and semi-smiling) by the first-chorus of “Better Than This,” a song that feels so personally resonant. Lyrics like “What if I'm not a good person? / You always say that I am / But you don't really know me at all now” and “Someone will love me better than this / Better than this / Someone will love you better than this / Better than this” externalize an often internalized anxiety with the tenderness, safety, and wisdom of a good friend.
“March,” track 13, is about Lizzy’s experience grieving her late father, while “Vortex,” the album’s closing number, explores ideas of acceptance, moving on, and letting go. It can’t be a coincidence that Older was released only a few days prior to the solar eclipse. The album feels strangely timeless, cyclical, spiritual. Maybe coming-of-age experiences don’t have to be so isolating, after all. Maybe we’re not alone in this. Maybe we’ve never been alone in this.
McAlpine’s 14 reflections on the passage of time, on ritual, on the human capacity for emotion are impressive to even the most therapy-ridden of 21st century young women. McAlpine’s music reminds me of the often suppressed parts of the 20-somethings I know and love (aka, my friends!): emotive, witty, and curious. What would happen if we share these parts of ourselves with reckless abandon? I wonder. McAlpine challenges us to find the courage to connect, with ourselves, with her, with each other, with the universe. Grief and love and heartbreak might be as old as dirt, McAlpine acknowledges, but Older makes these emotions feel as good as new. Older brings us full circle, McAlpine's memories transporting us back, forward, around—to the sensation of beginning to grow up. We might not ever know where that beginning is, or where it will end. But at least we can put our headphones back in, hit play, and have another 45 minutes of Older to try and find out.
