Each Measure Feature: Alli Brown
FEATURE
The songs that make up Undeniable, the debut album from Salt Lake City artist Alli Brown, were written over the course of the last decade. It’s a beautiful luxury for an artist to have. I’ve heard it said that an artist has their whole life to make their debut album, and by all accounts, Brown has handpicked her favorite songs to date, recorded them, and, in many cases, produced them herself. The result is a balanced, intimate, and thoughtful body of work–one that narratively captures the growth of an artist with a knack for articulating emotions that are difficult to put into words, but no less universal.
Brown told Apple Music that she’s been singing the National Anthem at sporting events for a decade—about as long as she’s been writing songs for her debut album. The cinephile in me loves imagining her life unfolding like a carefully orchestrated film: Brown standing before crowds as large as 15,000, singing the anthem and dreaming of the day she’d be performing her own songs. This is purely speculative, but I picture her writing by day, performing by night, a glimmer in her eye. And when the crowd erupts as she hits the iconic high F on freeeee, they might as well be singing her debut single, Some People Never Change, right back at her.
If Brown ever finds herself singing her own songs in front of 15,000 screaming fans, it will be for good reason. Her music captures many of the most universal feelings, making it easy to imagine her amassing that kind of a following. In the exchange with Apple Music about her National Anthem performances she said, “I love the thrill of being in front of thousands with all eyes on me.” On Lies Are Circulating, the fourth track on Undeniable, she buckles down, seeming to hint–perhaps a knowing wink–that her eventual rise was on her mind when responding to the streaming platform’s questions. For, on Lies Are Circulating, she maintains a consistency of language, singing, “There’s nothing worse than ending up / Where you never wanted to be / But in the end I’m still the one / With all eyes on me.”
Brown anticipates her own ascent, but does so while cooly maintaining an uncanny awareness that notariety is a double-edged sword. The audience sings “There’s nothing worse than ending up / Where you never wanted to be” along with Brown, because in Brown, they’ve found a voice able to put words to an elusive sentiment. And Brown, from the outset, acknowledges the price of fame–and its one she’d rather avoid–yet, her rise feels inevitable. It’s a self-fulfilling prophesy that keeps natural writers and performers like Brown in front of crowds that need reminders that their experiences aren’t had in a vacuum; they’re shared in solidarity with the thousands of people standing around them, singing along with the voice of the people.
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