Artist: Emily Bowen
Track: “Room 17”
Released 1-3-2025
Emily Bowen’s debut album Hate Me For This hits like a series of unfiltered diary entries. The songs were written with the intent of tapping into some of Bowen’s deeper emotions, and the only way for her to access them was to abandon all pretenses and simply write exactly what she was feeling, in the exact words that came to mind during that moment. “Room 17” is a prime illustration, with an admittedly non-poetic lyrical approach that hits harder because of it. The song adopts a confessional indie-pop style that also explores a soft-to-loud aesthetic juxtaposition, and the result is a piece that sounds as powerful as the emotions the artist is attempting to convey — even if she can’t quite find the words. Hate Me For This was released on January 3rd, 2025, and can be heard in its entirety here.
★★☆☆☆
(Worth Hearing)
Rating Scale:
5 Stars = Essential
4 Stars = Highly Recommended
3 Stars = Recommended
2 Stars = Worth Hearing
1 Star = Not Recommended
01.06.25
01.06.25
Song is just....fine for me, so probably in line with the 2/5 stars here. The soft-loud dynamic works fine and better than a lot of songs that swing for the same thing in this genre, but the actual parts are a sorta dima-a-dozen sad indie girl songs smashed with a past-its-prime postrock climax. I actually think that's an interesting idea for a song if the two halves were fleshed out a bit and not underwritten as is.
01.06.25
Very much agreed with everything you said about this song, specificially. It has some intriguing ideas but does not really pull them together. I think she's 20 years old, so if nothing else she's laying the groundwork for the future here, and I see enough promise in her voice and songwriting dynamic.