What I’m listening to the week of November 4, 2024. This week I’m spotlighting one of my favorite niches, female Gen Z artists who have reached varying levels of success but have yet to (or may never) get to the Olivia Rodrigo tier of fame. Listen along on Spotify.

1. It Could’ve Been You – Hannah Grae

Thank God I’ve got my twenties
We didn’t get married
At least I’m not forty and cursing our bedsheets
Wishing I’d left you, wishing you’d left me

I love when songs skip any of that pesky intro business and just get right into it. Grae (who was 21 at the time this song was released) cited “Bowling for Soup, Green Day, Paramore, American Hi-Fi, and Avril Lavigne as well as classic 2000s movies such as Mean Girls and Shrek” as inspirations, and Paramore is the one that comes through the clearest to me. I’m also reminded of Dresden Dolls in the breakdown near the end, where Grae imagines the life she could’ve had with her ex, one full of regrets, resentment, and “screwing the pool boy.”

2. Girl Next Door – Steph Sisam

But I’m hardly your girl next door
Though it felt that way for a decade or more
And the world is big, but to Jupiter we’re small
So does this moment in time mean anything at all?

I’m proud to be one of Sisam’s 18 monthly listeners on Spotify. Her vocals remind me of a more conventional version of someone like Jackie Cohen, and I see opportunities on this track for her to get more playful with her range. Here, she takes a zoomed out look at the personal, emphasizing the size and scope of the relationship across both time and space – a subtle existential streak that makes this song memorable.

3. Picture You Naked – Maddy Hicks

Sit on my hands
How do I look at you without breaking?

This is a fun one. 24-year-old singer-songwriter Hicks places us in the aftermath of a hookup as she struggles to keep it together in a social outing with her secret paramour. It’s a scenario that’s rife with tension and humor, and the song plays deftly with both, although it’s stronger when leaning into the latter. There’s a Disney Channel naughtiness to this song that wouldn’t be out of place on Sabrina Carpenter’s latest, especially the verse where Hicks lists all the potential places she’d be willing to go for round two.¹

4. an ego thing – Lizzy McAlpine

Sharp knife, loaded gun
There are two ways we can do this
I know which would be more fun
I won’t go first, won’t apologize
Pretty sure that it’s an ego thing
But I can’t stand a compromise

If you’ve heard of anyone on this list before, it’s likely to be McAlpine, who has three studio albums, a Tiny Desk Concert, and a collaboration with Niall Horan under her belt. She’s undeniably talented, but this song has a bite to it that grabs me more than the rest of her catalogue. The violent imagery in the lyrics is complemented by a consistent drumbeat that calls to mind a military march, while an eerie, whistle-y synth² floats over the verses like a ghost.

I got the lavender blues
I can’t seem to smile without you

Australian twins Jenaya and Anisha Okpalanze make up the 60s pop-inspired duo Surely Shirley. I find their act really charming, and this song in particular reminds me of Tennis’s first album, a high I’ve been chasing since 2011.

6. satisfied – Charlotte Rose Benjamin

I hope you’re satisfied
I hope you’re doing fine
I hope you wanna die every time I look beautiful online
I hope you hear my name reverberate like ringing bells stuck in your mind

Failed relationships are heartbreaking, but they’re just as often embarrassing. Benjamin captures that truth in mortifying detail in this song. As the story goes, “I was really into this boy I had just started seeing, I was sure he was about to be my boyfriend. I invited him to this house party in Bushwick that my band was playing at and two days before the show he broke up with me. Then he showed up to my show accidentally! He genuinely didn’t see the poster and thought he was just going to a house party. It was so funny and sad and stupid I had to make it a song.”

Like any great story song, it’s the details that make it shine – like how Benjamin is hyper-aware of how close she’s standing to her ex, distracting by him looking his phone during her set, how he has the nerve to ask for a cigarette after asking her to quit. Good luck getting that chorus out of your head!

7. Hot Guitar Player – MARIS

There’s a million different hot guitar players
There’s a million different funny guys
There’s a million different people with a reasonable schedule
That would give me just a little more time

While Charlotte Rose Benjamin is falling out of love, MARIS is jumping in headfirst. A giddy sugar rush of a song that comes to a head in a big, anthemic chorus. This song is part of a two-song trend along with Chappell Roan’s “Guilty Pleasure” that I call “Wait, Being a Cinephile is Hot Now?”

8. Jealous of Her – Ava Earl

Am I falling for a boy who has no space for me inside his pretty head?

Ava Earl is a young singer-songwriter from the small town of Girdwood, Alaska. A quick Google search reveals she’s not only a talented artist, but recently ran the second fastest mile for a woman in Alaska’s history. Speed dreams aside, I hope she sticks with the music track, because she’s got something special here. This folksy bit of heartbreak is elevated by a great bridge and lyrics just specific enough to be unique without sacrificing relatability.

9. Brian Cox – Sophie May

Space is way too big
Rocket ships and drones make me feel sick
I don’t want to know about Goldilocks zones or
Dying black holes where you never grow old
God, I hate the cosmos

Was kind of disappointed that this song was about Brian Cox the physicist and not Brian Cox the actor, but it’s still a good tune. I’m also afraid of space!

10. Fucking Married – Harriette

‘Cause I’m so cute, I’m 22
And I’ve got so much left to do
You turned 23, got that degree
Get out the door, get on that knee
And get fucking married

Bookending this write-up with another song in which marriage is a dead-end bullet dodged by the young female narrator. People are getting married later in life than ever before, so I guess it’s only right we have some anthems for it. This song has an interesting slacker coldness to it (“I’m dead inside³, but at least I’m not fucking married”) that one could ungenerously read as “cope”. But if I’m being generous, this is a breezy, attitude-first earworm that takes all the right lessons from country pop. Check back here in 3 months when this is huge on TikTok.

1. Fun(?) fact: “Picture You Naked” was co-written and mixed by Paige Blue, the drummer in Tramp Stamps, the poor souls who arguably formed the blueprint for the “viral band to industry plant backlash” pipeline. ↩︎
2. At least I’m pretty sure it’s a synth. On a related note, I might be the only person in the world who has Googled “lizzy mcalpine theremin” ↩︎
3. This particular oscillation between “numb/burnt out” and “hiding deep inner rage that I’m too cool for” is something that comes up in a lot of Gen Z music. It echoes broader “lobotomy-core” trends that my fellow Zoomers seem to be craving, especially women. ↩︎

Article cover image courtesy of the Nantucket Historical Association.