Last week, in our feature on Cyberbully Mom Club, we mentioned a split release featuring Adult Mom. While clicking around researching for that post we stumbled across Adult Mom’s latest EP, a tape which was (coincidently) released last week.
Adult Mom (who we featured on our Favourite Free Music list) is the bedroom pop project of Steph Knipe, and here she is supported by a full band. This band gives Sometimes Bad Happens a well-developed sound that is not as lo-fi as you might expect from the bedroom pop tag.
Lyrically, the release is a refreshingly honest (you could say naive, but aren’t we all?) take on young relationships and their termination. That sort of I-hate-you-but-can’t-stop-thinking-about-you-so-now-I’m-starting-to-hate-myself feeling. ‘I Make Boys Cry’ is interesting in that it deals with the whole romance/love thing from a different angle, ditching the angsty male ‘I love her/I miss her/I need her’ POV for a more realistic female perspective. Forget in-depth think pieces or convoluted psycho-/sociological essays, you won’t find a better description of the crux of feminism than the line: “I make boys cry because they don’t understand that i am a person.” Women have feelings too, huh? Who would have thought it? To quote the song in full:
“i make boys cry in parking lots outside of restaurants
but boys make me cry too when they tell me
‘i love you! i love you! i love you!’how many times will i be the one to enlighten and never get anything?
i make boys cry because they don’t understand that i am a person
yeah i get sad too but i don’t take it out on youit’s shit that your love for me scared you so much
but “i love you! i love you! i love you!” is not enough.”
But despite the songs being full of sadness and confusion and hurt, they serve to point things out beyond the obvious ‘I’m sad, this sucks.’ Out of the bad times catalogued here comes something affirming, an acknowledgement that x is bad, and y is bad too, but I’m still alive and functioning and now I know x and y is bad so maybe I can deal with it better. Knipe describes this better than I can:
‘”Sometimes bad happens” is a direct quote from a toddler after dropping a truck full of sand on the floor and it resonated with me because it’s simple. Sometimes bad does happen, it’s a given, and sometimes we have to just move on and accept it. Accept bad shit, accept pain, accept being heartbroken, and one day you will be able to grow taller. Be angry and wild and sad and wacky because sometimes it’s all we can do to survive. Appreciate sadness and its temporary quality. That’s all, thank you to everyone in life.’
Sometimes Bad Happens will be officially released on the 22nd August, and you can buy it on Bandcamp, or on tape via Miscreant Records. The good folks over at The Le Sigh are streaming the EP on Soundcloud.