Current popular deals for the greater Boston area: whale watching in Gloucester, couples massages at the Four Seasons and… a Microsoft Office license?
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Claire Davidson: There’s something vaguely uncanny about hearing an interpolation of Noah Kahan’s “Stick Season” not five years after the original was released that, thanks to being employed by a far more confident singer, somehow makes the initial chord progression sound far more intuitive than it ever did in Kahan’s hands. Stella Lefty’s “Boston” is a country song with enough wind in its sails to emerge on the Hot 100 without the help of Nashville machinery, and Lefty makes for a colorful narrator, the hitches in her forward belting a good fit for a song about the surprise she feels when meeting a partner who doesn’t make her want to jump ship. There’s genuine warmth in the track, too, supplied by an abundance of pedal steel on the verses that grounds the song without ever making it feel sluggish. Still, for a track about the relief of finally finding security in a relationship, one senses that “Boston” could aim even higher in depicting that ideal — this song is crying out for a jaunty piano line on the hook’s latter half that just never comes. Stella Lefty also has an odd vocal timbre for this sort of material: I don’t have a problem with a native Chicagoan making country music if her appreciation for the genre is real, but her delivery is almost too eager to capitalize on a charged moment, meaning that she never fully settles into the verses’ more ambling dynamic. In our anesthetized music industry, though, it’s hard to complain about a singer with too much vitality; we’ll see if her odd blend of influences has some staying power.
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Alfred Soto: If an act advocates for niceness, I won’t stop them. Others have mentioned this child of wealth’s background — she can buy niceness by the yard, no doubt. The track is such well-groomed winsomeness that I wanted to kick it in the teeth.
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Al Varela: Here’s the thing with industry plants, nepo babies, and all the other derogatory terms associated with new stars with famous parents: most people who break out in their industry in many ways got there because they happened to know someone who can give them a boost that others can’t. Nepotism is a part of capitalism regardless of it’s someone you’re related to or not, and I don’t really care if the newest breakout star suddenly getting all these big industry connections happen to be someone whose dad has his own Wikipedia page. After all, plenty of nepo babies have proven to be talented and worthy hitmakers (no one seems to care that Sabrina is the nephew of Bart Simpson, for example). All that to say that “Boston,” detached from all that noise, is… fine. It’s cute, the chorus is catchy, the production is serviceable. It reminds me most of Dasha’s “Austin,” another viral pop country-ish song about moving states. I’ve softened on “Austin” over the years, especially as Dasha would eventually prove herself to be a solid pop country artist in her own right, and luckily I think Stella Lefty has already shown she can make some legit great stuff on her own with rising Nashville star (and coincidentally boyfriend), Vincent Mason. So I expect a similar path for myself and my relationship with “Boston”. For now, I’m cool with it.
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Nortey Dowuona: Color me surprised that Nathan Dantzler co produced this gem, as well as mastering these gems as well. He truly is a double threat. Stella sounds great too.
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Harlan Talib Ockey: There’s something deeply sad about this: saying you’re in love and ready to meet your partner’s family when the most they seem to have going for them is “I like it when you’re nice to me” and “you don’t want me to leave”. The pedal steel flourishes are right in the overlap between warm and bittersweet.
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Ian Mathers: I have long been committed to the school of arts criticism that acknowledges how much our personal context brings to how we receive songs. But I must admit (through gritted teeth) to being chagrined at how clearly “Boston” would have felt differently to me even a week ago (and maybe in a week from now too, who the fuck knows). But right now? “I like it when you’re nice to me” feels less like a despairing ceiling to the experience and more like a sweetly bashful floor. I’m not going to close read any more lyrics because that’s quite enough of my personal business creeping on the Jukebox, but for me the real joy in “Boston” is the way even in the face of various worries, fears, and past patterns, Lefty has found the strength to give this thing a chance.
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