If you are even half as addicted to your phone as I am, there is a good chance that you have heard the song “In My Room” that has been trending on TikTok. The song is usually paired with an edit of one of the five “Twilight” movies, since those are the artist, Julia Wolf’s, favorite movies. The song went viral online for its 2000s throw-back vibes, and went platinum on my Spotify account. I was utterly obsessed.
So, what is grunge? According to my boyfriend and the Merriam-Webster dictionary, grunge is a sub-genre of alternative rock. While that may be the dictionary definition, I see grunge as an entire genre of its own – with strong influences from indie, angst, pop-punk, and of course, alternative rock. Artists under the grunge category include Nirvana, Radiohead and slight, subtle hints of Paramore (although, they are more alternative rock).
Wolf shows tributes to all three bands throughout her new album, “PRESSURE.” Most people say the grunge genre died when the genre’s spearheading artists began releasing less and less music every year. Grunge slowly faded out of radio stations and award shows, only living on through alternative rock bands like Panic! at the Disco, My Chemical Romance and Paramore. When discovering Wolf, you’d have to imagine my surprise, hearing her music sound like all these great bands.
“PRESSURE” is Wolf’s third studio album, and according to global music charts – like Billboard – it’s her best-selling one to date. The album’s cover shows Wolf being suspended mid-air by the skin just below her chest from a harness made from chains. I have fallen so completely in love with the album cover, as it invokes a certain reaction from people. The image is something that clearly couldn’t have been easy to communicate – so far that I admire her vision and ability to story tell.
The album’s first track, “Kill You Off,” starts the record with an off-beat string of noises, comparable to the opening of Charli xcx’s “Track 10.” The song is seemingly about how she killed off the memory of someone. Yet, after further research and during an interview with EUPHORIA Magazine, she admitted song is about the loss of innocence and the self-loathing betrayal she felt after killing it.
While Wolf is not openly religious, she closes the song with a biblical reference to Jesus, and how killing her innocence might’ve made him hate her. She sings, “’Jesus sees, he hates,’ He might hate me.”
Many may be led to believe the first song is usually somewhat of an outlier, and doesn’t exactly fit in with the other tracks on the album – especially if it’s a title track. If you are one of those people, I have come to tell you that you are totally, completely, wholly and entirely wrong.
My one and only critique is that all her music genuinely sounds the same. It is refreshing to see her sticking true to her genre and what she loves and is clearly good at, but this could also be a very dangerous route to go down when listeners are always looking for something new.
But, I mean, if you like one, you like them all, right?
