Teenage pop’s idea of adolescence is one long contradiction. In five minutes flat you can be sure of yourself and totally insecure. Five minutes can have you burning with obsession over the next person, then so sure of yourself that nobody else matters. An hour ago you were going to love yourself for evermore, now you don’t know what on earth is wrong with you.
Piper Connolly’s debut EP is 2000s pop-rock remembrance, shiny alt-pop melody and monstrously great feelings. Connolly is just 15 – and that’s part of what makes her debut singer-songwriter EP resonant. She’s not pretending to be an adult – she hasn’t survived three divorces, a midlife crisis and a very odd spell in Europe – but just sings about what’s right in front of her: love, friendship, awkwardness, acceptance and the wild, wild world of growing up.
That aspect has a similar appeal to Chloe Moriondo’s Blood Bunny, where her largely debut-era songs could translate the awkwardness and emotional extremes of adolescence into something hooky without making it seem as though that stuff didn’t matter. Connolly has a similar knack for making teenage messiness feel like a feature rather than a flaw.
“beautiful life” opens the EP by focusing on the simplest emotion: joy. The song came after Connolly found herself falling for a person and her song is about how the right person can turn everything else in the world a little bit lighter. She’s described it as “bottled up in a song,” and it’s a good way to describe how easy-going and window-down-y the song is – it’s just happy.
‘bubblegum with razorblades’ clarifies even further the core tension of the EP. On the surface it’s sweet, but it also has a sharper edge, aligning with Connolly’s habit of combining energetic pop sensibilities with a mix of other feelings. This song is also fitting for an album that acknowledges that being a teenager can be a lot of fun or a lot of trouble…or, to put it another way, both.
“better than this” adds to that through the space of confidence and disappointment. Its title reads like a boast, but there’s a little bit of irritation hiding in there as well: you know it should be better, but that doesn’t really help you figure out what you should do to make it so. That is why this song is part of this EP’s larger coming-of-age narrative more than just a pop song about feeling good.
“joyride” is where Connolly fully indulges that loose spirit. She’s too much! Is about acceptance and the tougher emotions, but it’s also explicitly about having a good time. Sometimes you need to hop in the driver’s seat, blast the stereo and roll down the highway.
Next, “body bag” drags that nonchalant vibe through the dirt and resuscitates it with even more volume. On the track Connolly channeled an exhausting friend that left you feeling inadequate, rejected and just plain garbage. It’s not a respectful chat about boundaries.
But under that dramatic phrasing is a good one: you can use what’s thrown at you as motivation. You might not be what someone thinks you are, so you go ahead and show them what you really got. The song sounds assertive, but it’s not vengeful.
“unapologetic” concludes the EP with the central message of no apology in self-acceptance. Connolly told us that it was about being yourself while knowing that you are not perfect. It’s not exactly a trailblazing message, but that’s not its purpose. Its power lies in its simplicity. It doesn’t put forward self-acceptance as a goal; it’s there to keep working on while you’re still working on yourself.
What makes she’s too much! Interesting is how Connolly refuses to cut herself in half to accommodate those sensations. With each of the six tracks-from happiness to sweetness, disappointment to freedom, anger to acceptance-they all head back to the same point: what if we allowed our intensity instead of constantly trying to fix it?
For Piper Connolly, that’s an EP. And she makes it a good one.
A tenured media critic known working as a ghost writer, freelance critic for various publications around the world, the former lead writer of review blogspace Atop The Treehouse and content creator for Manila Bulletin.
