Arlo Parks - Collapsed in Sunbeams review: class rep for Gen Z observes the world through poetry

These new songs offer comfort, which is probably exactly what we all need right now
Powerful emotions: Arlo Parks
Charlie Cummings
David Smyth29 January 2021

If you stick the word “generation” in a title, it’s going to be assumed that you’re speaking for a lot of people. Just ask The Who. Arlo Parks called her first EP Super Sad Generation, and as a child of 2000, has been seen since as class rep for Gen Z. Although the themes of her songs – mental struggles, addictions, unrequited queer love – suggest the big picture, more often she sounds like she isn’t speaking for anyone but those in her immediate eyeline.

A poet as well as a musician, her debut album begins with a spoken word piece fixated on tiny particulars, and finds her feeding a cat and slicing artichoke hearts. Elsewhere, she’s a careful observer, often one step removed from the story, watching an argument between a couple on the street in Caroline and addressing a depressed friend on Black Dog. Things generally happen to her, not because of her. Someone leans in for a kiss but won’t admit they like her on Too Good. A girl that she likes goes off with an inferior boy on Eugene.

The music – shuffling beats and jazzy guitar licks that would have defined her as a trip hop act in the Nineties – is smooth and pretty and combined with her breathy, unassuming vocals, can struggle to reflect fully the powerful emotions that she depicts. 

As a whole, these are songs that offer comfort rather than expressing pain – which could be what her generation, and the rest of us, need the most.

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