Breaking up is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ to do…
Al Varela: Gracie Abrams continues to frustrate me by giving me nothing to work with. There’s a good song in here somewhere, but I can’t ignore how much of the problem lies within Gracie herself. She has the energy and fervor to sell the stakes of the song but none of the weight or fury in her voice to make it hit. What should be a cathartic release of frustration and anger feels more like a drunk college student at karaoke singing “Before He Cheats” with a smile. There could be something charming about that scenario, but the chorus is the annoying type of catchy that gets in your head but drives you insane for the next half hour. I’d probably rate this lower if Aaron Dessner was a worse producer.
[4]
Claire Davidson: From what little I’ve heard from Gracie Abrams, she strikes me as a pretty poor singer, lacking vocal control to the point of sounding winded whenever she attempts a style other than angsty speak-singing. That said, her flustered approach does pair well with lyrics that have the white-knuckled desperation to match it, and “That’s So True” is my favorite example of this among her radio hits. (“Close to You” has a similar appeal, while “Risk” tips too far into fatalism to really work.) The lyrics aren’t particularly groundbreaking, detailing a scenario where Abrams, despite her ex being “just another dude,” can’t shake the frustration she feels when encountering his admittedly fun new girlfriend. Yet the song’s composition, rooted in a rollicking acoustic guitar and a chorus whose lyrics seem to tumble over themselves, lends the song a believable degree of inner tumult, capturing the all-too-familiar aggravation of being unable to let wisdom overpower feeling when it comes to love. I’ll give credit to Abrams for displaying an actual sense of humor, too; the tongue-in-cheek cooing that anchors the hook is half of what makes it so catchy, subtly implying that there’s a bit of fun in making the wrong decisions.
[7]
Julian Axelrod: As a longtime Gracie skeptic, it brings me no pleasure to report that I’ve been wrestled into submission by this song’s inoffensive inescapability. They don’t play this kind of music at CVS anymore, but somehow it sounds like how a CVS smells.
[6]
Ian Mathers: I wound up coming around to “I Love You, I’m Sorry,” if not the record as a whole. I still don’t think she’s fully there yet for me, songwriting wise, but this one has a snap and a justified venom that works.
[7]
Alfred Soto: A postgrad from the School of Advanced Taylor Swift Studies, Gracie Adams sure loves her ooohs and her run-ons: the most charming things about her. In fact “That’s So True” revels in its charm.
[6]
Leah Isobel: This is the absolute worst-case scenario for post-Taylor pop music.
[1]
Isabel Cole: Further evidence that Gracie simply doesn’t have the juice. This song feels like an amalgamation of things she’s tried to learn from her peers: Taylor’s bite and melodrama; Olivia’s chatty pose as the unhinged ex; Sabrina’s sexual frankness, although the lines that follow “what’d she do to get you off” are incongruously and disappointingly tame. Art is influence, of course, but the trick is do it in such a way that the audience feels they are witnessing something new rather than something borrowed, and neither the somg nor Gracie’s flimsy performance is strong enough to hide the seams. It doesn’t help that the production is our something old, a bit of stomp-clap-hey noise so rote it gave me flashbacks; as an admitted sucker for Dessner’s Dessnerisms, I looked up the credits in search of a clue and it all seemed to make sense once I saw co-producer Julian Bunetta, who was often partly responsible for One Direction at their Mumfordiest.
[3]
Nortey Dowuona: Hey, Audrey Hobert cowrote this too! And it’s better, too. Thank you, Julian Bunetta.
[6]
Mark Sinker: That feeling when the item under review perfectly manifests a theory you know needs tons of work (reading as well as listening, both of which you REALLY SHOULD DO ANYWAY) and you want to give it a [10] for this perfection… except the theory, when nailed down, would actually mean it’s bad (like probably a [3]), and so to punish yourself for not having even started the work (re-reading distressingly long Disney-girl threads on ilx from years ago; parsing T. Swift’s entire back catalog; so much else) you opt, for now, and disgustedly, for the classic triangulation score:
[6]
Alex Clifton: Gracie Abrams and her idol, Taylor Swift, share the same gift of translating a specific emotional experience into something that you can mould to your own personal life. I love a good “Espresso,” but when singing along, I’m deeply aware that I was never a 20-something bombshell that made men say “AWOOGA” as I walked past in a cute little swimsuit. But I’ve spent a lot of time telling off exes and putting them in their place (only in my mind, of course — that’s the only way I’d win the arguments). “That’s So True” allows the listener to tap into that feeling and do so with relish. There’s a reason the second verse became a TikTok lip-sync trend: as soon as you begin acting it out, you’re the main character in your own movie. You get to be dramatic and cause a scene that would definitely get you kicked out of a bar, but within the confines of a song, it’s totally okay. Abrams has also clearly spent a lot of time studying Swiftian bridges to great effect and has quite a good one here. I appreciate watching Abrams grow as a songwriter, but it’s also cool to see her have some fun with her music.
[6]
Katherine St. Asaph: Gracie Abrams is trying to sound like her idol Taylor Swift, and her singsong, cutesily boy-crazy delivery of “or twice, ah” is admittedly a pretty direct Taylor rip. But she really sounds like Kina Grannis or Of Monsters and Men and similar early-’10s acts: cheerful, chipper coffeeshop whistling. (Last winter, I experienced this song in its true spiritual home: a hotel cafe in Miami that endlessly piped in adult-hits radio for guests to enjoy with their pistachio toast, with the tacit assumption that they’ll leave before the playlist starts to repeat.) “That’s So True” in particular is also near-identical to Sabrina Carpenter’s “Taste,” a similarly breezy breakup song with the same “I Hit It First” conceit. But while Carpenter comes off as genuinely unbothered, Abrams clearly is hurt; read those lyrics on the bridge. But she sounds unbothered. The pleasantness of the song fits the subject matter: Abrams is downplaying her heartbreak to maintain a lighthearted, likable, and chill facade, and she’s learned to do that a little too well. She addresses her ex in gentle teasing terms that, in another context, would be indistinguishable from bashful flirting: “think about your dumb face all the time.” She fleetingly, jokingly acknowledges that maybe she should be jealous of his new girlfriend, while resisting the idea of allowing herself to really hate her. And she summarizes it all with a no-big-deal kind of self-awareness: “smiling through it all, yeah, that’s my life.” It’s as if Alanis’s song went “I’m here to remind you of the mess you left lol.”
[6]
Taylor Alatorre: Right-wing meme response: “This was rejected at the ballot box.” Left-wing meme response: “so true oomfie“
[4]
Aaron Bergstrom: So it turns out that if “Silk Chiffon” was straight and spiteful, it wouldn’t be as good.
[4]
Melody Esme: Confessionalism and authenticity are in. Olivia, Billie, Sabrina, and Chappell all make it look so easy, and yet are operating in a grand pop tradition where truth only half-matters. Does it matter that “My Kink is Karma” is about a real person, or is it more important that it hits something real on a universal level? “That’s So True” is closer to the “You Oughta Know,” “Misery Business,” and “Better Than Revenge” school — getting back at your ex’s new partner through sexual shaming. I love the other three songs, so I’m not gonna pretend I’m better than this. But I get the impression that Abrams’s heart isn’t really in this. “What’d she do to get you off?” feels more quizzical than anything, like she’s actually looking for tips. The true authentic touch is that the chorus never goes as big as it could, its “oo-oo-oo”‘s staying relatively grounded. Anyway, the “oo-oo-oo”‘s aren’t the real hook of the song — it’s those snare hits.
[7]
Joshua Lu: Weirdly rushed, like if someone tried to cram a Taylor Swift song into a sub-three minute package and had to leave out all of the melodies and decent songwriting. The frequent intonation changes seem to indicate something dramatic is happening, but the song is too desperate to move onto the next mushmouth line to let you indulge in anything.
[4]
Will Adams: The bridge’s rapid stream of syllables seems to suggest urgency. The winking delivery of “…or twice” seems to suggest cleverness. The giant drums seem to suggest scale. That’s the essence of “That’s So True”: a suggestion of a breakup song, wherein the narrator holds herself back from the emotions really pouring out.
[5]
Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Perhaps the best, most effective song she has made or ever will make.
[5]