When it comes to Gen Z teen sensations, we’ve been spoiled with Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo. So it’s about time that the diluted versions arrive on the scene. Born in 2000 but still dwelling in the flux of adolescence, English singer-songwriter Maisie Peters found fame on YouTube and, now that she’s signed to Ed Sheeran’s label, is stuck in the limbo of following a trend and trying to pave her own way.
“I am 20 and probably upset right now, I still haven’t got my driver’s license and I am sorry to make it about myself again,” she opens with on the schmaltzy title track, hoping to appear on the soundtrack to the next To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before movie. Plucky guitar pop, the cliches run riot (“Fell for you and got a bad concussion,” she sings on Love Him I Don’t) and hard truths fall flat (“’Cause this ain’t no John Hughes movie,” she insists on John Hughes Movie).
Still, her pureness can’t be dismissed. As Peters wallows on a secret crush on Outdoor Pool, she counts down the minutes for school to end so she can be herself, and that’s where her appeal lies.
A thoroughly PG affair, this is an album for pre-teens who fantasise about the adventures they’ll have once they’re old enough. It’s starry-eyed nostalgia for the lives they’ve yet to lead.
