Review Summary: Magnificent, daring, dangerous! The time of your life! Ha ha, ha ha. Step right up folks, and bring the family, you won't want to miss this.
A Thousand Songs About It All: Act 1 has the aura of a circus. The songwriting is over-the-top ambitious, the instrumentals are jaunty and unpredictable, and Madilyn Mei’s vocal acrobatics are wildly entertaining. It transports listeners to a realm of both fantasy and tranquility, offering an experience akin to a country Joanna Newsom writing an elaborate opera for the masses. Let me be clear:
this is not for everyone. However, if you’re at all tapped into folk-pop as a genre, then
Act 1 might be one of the most pleasant surprises you’ll hear in 2025. The extravaganza that awaits inside this tent is well worth the price of admission, so if your curiosity is even slightly piqued, then I suggest you step right up and get your tickets. The ringmaster awaits!
From the very onset,
A Thousand Songs About It All: Act 1 is an exercise in the spectacular. ‘My Only Sense of Purpose’ begins with fluttering strings that erupt into grandiose crescendos underscored by harps, only to immediately pivot sideways into Mei’s quirky, cheerful vocals. That chipper demeanor is also quickly belied by Madilyn’s lyrics, which paint a darker picture of disaffection with the music industry. “You know what they say about bright flames / Gonna burn out, they’re gonna replace you / Replicate, AI generate you”, she sings with the biggest forced smile, eventually making a keen allusion to the album’s subtly depressing artwork: “Make it a character / You’re her, but you’re not
her.” One can almost see Mei as the jaded puppeteer, already making her character dance while we applaud and whistle at the spectacle in ignorance. The theme continues into the next track, where she sings atop a bouncing rhythm of chimes and acoustic strums, “There’s no list of writers on the screen, it’s only me / I am the sole director, I am the soul behind the show / If my shoulders were broad, I’d rule your world too”. As bursts of “la la la la” explode through the mix and somehow sound bombastic, she transitions into an ethereal atmosphere that sounds like it was lifted from a Brian Wilson score, momentarily lifting the curtain to give us a glimpse into her soul: “I’m the hand of God in my own little world / Used to play the part well, but now it seems I forgot / You'll never know who I am, who I'm not / This world that you see, can be quite the facade / But backstage I know, I'm wearing a mask / And when I burn out, and I wish to be done / I'll yank at my strings, it's only Act 1".
In keeping with the analogy, if
Act 1 were to have a
main attraction lit up in bright neon lights, it would probably be ‘What’s Going On?!’, a song that is absolutely manic in its progression and all the more exciting for it. The track is written from the perspective of an alien (yes), and employs both humor and darkness to get its point across - something of a whimsical wild gesture at the state of the world: “So does being human mean pretending to know what's going on? / Take me to your leader, I would like to have a couple words / Get your shit together / How do humans keep on getting worse? / I'd go back to space, but they've invaded out there too, we're doomed”. The song also features a full blown scream that is an a wild juxtaposition considering Mei’s typically upbeat musical persona, before sliding over to jaw-droppingly gorgeous pianos and spacey synths that set the stage for Mei to get extremely introspective, extremely fast: “Dissociate through another day / I don't know who that is standing in the mirror / Everywhere I look, I'm alone.” The song is bound to leave its listeners with both jetlag and depression. Highlights are sprawled all across
Act 1, but in the interest of not giving everything away, I’ll just say that there’s plenty more where ‘What’s Going On?!’ came from - and it’s all worth your time for vastly different but equally maniacal reasons.
A Thousand Songs About It All: Act 1’s greatest strength may be how deep it goes beneath all of the surface antics. We’ve all witnessed those “concept albums” before that are entirely fanfare and little in the way of substance - but that’s
not Madilyn Mei. This album covers a wide range of topics - and sure, it’s absolutely zany at times - but not unlike the ringmaster/puppeteer analogy that pervades
Act 1, there’s a distinctly
human element behind all the trapezing and exploding confetti. Perhaps the best summation I could give comes in the form of the penultimate ‘My Name’, which for all intents and purposes is the true closer. The atmospheric, acoustically-driven tune touches on themes of identity - in every way that makes us who we are: “I am a soul, I’m not a body or name” she muses, eventually getting to the crux of the record’s overarching message: “Nothing's wrong with me at all, the box doesn't fit me...the box never fit me.” In hearing it, everything about
Act 1 makes a little more sense. Why the circus/carnival act? Why the artwork depicting a clearly unhappy narrator putting on a show for the masses? It’s all evident by the time this album has finished, but you have to unravel it to get to the big reveal.
That’s entertainment in its purest form, even if it feels like emotional exploitation. Maybe that’s the music industry at its best, or, maybe that's just life. After all, we all wear masks and put on our own shows.
We bid adieu, until act two
Come back to the one man circus soon
You're probably wondering how it ends, aren't you?
So, come back to the one man circus
My only sense of purpose
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