Chloe Lilac doesn't sugarcoat anything. Her new mixtape you were good to me is comprised of four tracks detailing her experience with loss. Her lyrics hit hard, and her songs are filled with angst, but she still lets her softness come through.
Chloe Lilac has been taking over the indie scene with her moody, gritty songs. This mixtape centers on loss, but she doesn't do projects with a theme in mind, but this collection all fits together. She explains, "Specifically, this mixtape is about losing the people you love most. Whether that's losing a best friend, losing a romantic partner, or losing yourself. It can be hard to let go when people come in and out of your life. You could feel betrayed, you could feel heartbreak, you could feel anger, but at the end of the day, it all comes back to love." Love and loss go hand in hand, and Lilac knows not all love needs to be romantic love to break your heart.
Starting strong with "lily's backyard," Lilac doesn't shy away from getting personal, but the pop-punk stylings laced in the chorus echo her anger while the verses feel like her specific brand of bedroom pop. She tells me, "I think I've really leaned into the rock side of my music in this new mixtape. I feel like I'm finally making music that feels like me." Chloe Lilac's authenticity shines through in this project.
On "how does your girlfriend feel about it," she feels especially vulnerable, but it's the growing anger and resentment she has that makes the track. The increasing tension in the chorus just feels like a betrayal. She puts it plainly, "It's about someone who was dishonest with me. They were being selfish, and I wanted them to come clean."
Her transparency as an artist draws her audience in, and if there's one thing she struggles with, it's the messier parts of being an artist in 2022. She doesn't want anything to come across as inauthentic, especially with marketing her music. "My music is just me," she emphasizes, "It's hard to then create an image, especially when I was younger and didn't know what I was about yet. Monetizing emotional stuff like my music has always been strange for me. It's such a deeply personal thing."
Keeping things personal is key. Her song "last week" is the gentlest of the four tracks. It has a 2000's punk ballad feeling, the layered vocals, the almost chanting in the background over the soft guitar strumming. Seeing her experiment with blending genres shows her growth for an artist who started young and has such evident talent.
Her motivation always comes from her wanting to connect with people. She says, "I think what keeps me motivated is making music itself. I need to express myself, so I'm constantly writing new stuff. I also really like the fact that my music helps other people. That's what makes me love putting it out."
"only love song" rounds it out with gentle vocals and soft guitars that build into an anthemic chorus. When she declares, "I'm sorry I hated myself so much, I couldn't show you a healthier love," she's almost at the point of shouting, repeating the line over and over again like she wants to tell herself the same thing. Her pain is so palpable. It's an apology, and it sums up the mixtape so perfectly. Sometimes we don't lose people, sometimes, we push them away, and all you can do is say you're sorry or put out a mixtape.
Chloe Lilac is currently on tour with Pom Pom Squad, the tour kicked off with a bad case of tonsillitis, and her voice took a toll, but she's in good spirits. She says, "Other than that, though, things have been so fun. We all really get along with Pom Pom Squad. I got a musical director to help me out with the live set, so everything sounds a lot better, and my manager and her partner helped me a lot with DIY stage design stuff. Overall, this is the first time I would say my live set really does my music justice."
Everything is falling into place for her, but she's still making her mark on the music world the growth she's exhibited as such a young artist is remarkable. She can transcend those intense feelings and make them into songs that are so relatable and so specific. When I ask her what she would tell her younger self, she simply says, "It's all going to be okay. Things are going to happen the way they're supposed to."
