Review: "LEARNING TO LET GO" - Lights
- Madison Spies
- 9 hours ago
- 3 min read
Envelop yourself in grit, electronic escape, and humanity with “LEARNING TO LET GO” by Lights. Off her upcoming album, A6EXTENDED, “LEARNING TO LET GO” sets up an honest, raw love story like a row of perfectly aligned dominoes. Lights beautifully paints the highs & lows of love & loss, describing the process of healing and moving past a relationship that included a great amount of distraction. While staying by this person’s side, Lights’ partner is rather focused on crafting life to mold what they want it to look like. Though an overall upbeat track, “LEARNING TO LET GO” uses electronic qualities to showcase this imbalance within the relationship and to highlight Lights’ motivation to keep moving forward. There is a uniqueness to “LEARNING TO LET GO” that emits a sense of maturity and perspective. These traits can cleverly morph the track at times, allowing listeners the chance to both focus on their emotions and/or choose to dive solely into sound.
Lights’ choices behind “LEARNING TO LET GO” set the tone for the entire extended album to come, embedding catchy pop writing with an indie, alternative, and electronic ambience. Layering multiple genres adds to the romance behind the track, giving context and displaying emotion at times when lyrics don’t speak for its entirety. Lines such as, “You gotta take it from me, it isn’t easy to see when you got the sun in your eyes in the evening,” detail just how deep the splitting of this relationship cuts, including both personal and personable fragments that trace back to a central message of loving and focusing on oneself in the face of hardship. The placement of “LEARNING TO LET GO” within A6EXTENDED additionally shows intention and serves its purpose in the spot of track #19, located below “THIS TIME TMRW” and above “FINAL ROUND”. Upon examining the album’s titles, this placement feels purposeful and showcases a streamlined, well-thought-out plan to detail a story to listeners. The final pieces behind “LEARNING TO LET GO” feel final from Lights’ POV, as she explains that her partner may try to backtrack to find her and rekindle the relationship, but that she will not be there, but the ending of this track does not feel final for the entire story. It’s clear that Lights has the utmost ability to tell a detailed, structured story, but that she is not finished here. With the upcoming release of A6EXTENDED, I look forward to hearing more about her journey ahead and how leaving this relationship behind will benefit her.
Lights is a Canadian singer-songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist, DJ, and lover of varying projects. In addition to her work in music, she is also a comic book author! While she has completed sold-out tours across many continents, her success has carried her to make headlines from Coachella to Comic-Con, showcasing her wide range of talent. She has collaborated with artists such as Travis Barker, Steve Aoki, deadmau5, and many more along this journey. Her music speaks directly from her heart and lyrically from her mind, leaving it all out on the table. Intertwining alternative, indie, dance, and pop, she paves her own path forward and refuses to make music from a non-truthful standpoint. With a shadow over alternative music and culture, she has garnered an abundance of streams, in the hundreds of millions, and widespread critical acclaim.
Written By Madison Spies
FOLLOW LIGHTS: