I listened to this BEWITCHINGLY great album for the first time since last year (and it's one of my favorites now!)

Hi! Yes, I know this album is from 2023, so it's a bit older than what I usually review, but I just had to. This is an album by Laufey, who is a very popular artist so you've probably heard of her at some point, although Hits 1 never picked up on any of her music for whatever reason. (How has Hits 1 has had so many relatively unknown artists make Hitbound, some debuting the countdown, some becoming top 10 hits, some even reaching number one for multiple weeks, but no Laufey songs have come even remotely close to Hits 1?) I had heard a few Laufey songs and loved them, but I never before brought myself to listen to her entire Bewitched album until late last year. Well, I recently rediscovered it and listened to it a few times, and it's easily one of my favorite albums of the 2020s, if not the entire 2000s. Her music style is really cool and unique from anything else recent, and I love it. I describe it as "noir jazz pop". It's clearly very contemporary, but a heavy jazz influence runs throughout the entire album, and many of the songs have dark sounds and lyrical themes to them. It's just an incredible blend of genres. Another thing this album does well is reusing melodic motifs throughout, but bringing new meaning to them, and managing to sustain interest throughout even when many songs have such similar qualities. Overall, I just love this album.

(Oh yeah, also I just realized how hard album reviews are to make, so I've decided to update my schedule again. *sigh* One album review per month.)

So, let's get into the songs now!

1. Dreamer

My rating: 5/5 Great

A rare occurrence of a very strong opening track on an album. While it may not be one of my favorites on the whole album, it's a great song. I wasn't sure about it from the introduction, but it evolves a lot throughout, in a great way. This song really does a good job of introducing the jazz production we'll hear a lot of throughout the album. But also, it's a nice lyrical introduction as well. This album touches on all aspects of love, and I think it's funny how it starts with this song about... well, giving up on love. The lyrics are very cleverly written and a bit funny at times, which I think Laufey is surprisingly good at. Overall, although not one of my very favorites on the whole album, it's a wonderful introductory track.

2. Second Best

My rating: 5/5 Great

I love this song. This is one of my favorites for sure. I think it was clever that she put the song Second Best as the second song on the tracklist. Like I said before, this album talks about every aspect of love, with this song being about the pain of a relationship where you give someone everything and they still love someone else more, as reflected by a simple refrain of "you were my everything, I was your second best". This song kind of reminds me of Tolerate It, one of my favorite Taylor Swift songs, mostly because of the lyrics. The production is so well-made also, somehow managing to feel like a more traditional pop ballad while still maintaining great influence from jazz. This is something that Laufey does better than almost anyone else I've listened to: blending genres. Laufey manages to somehow integrate elements of pop, jazz, classical, folk, rock, and more, while still making her music sound cohesive. This song, using just a simple guitar line, manages to succeed at that. Overall, great song.

3. Haunted

My rating: 5/5 Great

Interestingly, this song shares a title with a Taylor Swift song. I was surprised to see that this song doesn't actually ever sing the title in the lyrics. (Technically it says "haunt" and "haunts", but never "haunted".) I love this song. The production is gorgeous, reflecting the haunting tone of the lyrics. And this honestly has some of Laufey's best lyricism. I love how Laufey is able to have a balance of great music and lyrics, and this song has vivid imagery of feeling "haunted" by the idea of love beginning to develop. It's a nice twist from the more cynical previous two songs, while still having the uncertain undertone to it. The album has been amazing so far.

4. Must Be Love

My rating: 5/5 Great

The title describes exactly what I think of this song. I love how this album has such a nice storyline to it: we start with avoidance of love, and then we have reflections on a loss of love, followed by uncertain desires for love, building up to... just flat-out desires for love. This song is lyrically similar to Haunted, but instead of being about nervous and, well, "haunted", this song is about how love makes her life unusually joyous in a way she wasn't expecting. I love how the slow jazz production supports this in such a nice way also. Another solid little song, not much else to say about it.

5. While You Were Sleeping

My rating: 5/5 Great

We've reached track 5! Unlike Taylor Swift, however, Laufey seems to typically place a more hopeful song as track 5. On her early EP, Typical Of Me, track 5 was James, which is, although really more angsty than happy, still delivered in a playful and upbeat way, about a crush on a boy named James but finding out he's actually annoying to be with. On her debut album, Everything I Know About Love, track 5 was a song called Dear Soulmate, which is about dreaming of a soulmate. After building up such uncertainty in the previous tracks, this song is about truly being in love with someone. The production is magnificent, with a "spacey" sound to it that reflects on the themes of the song about how being in love really feels like. This song is just beautiful.

6. Lovesick

My rating: 4/5 Good

Well, not every song is ever great. This song is close to being called "great" but I decided it doesn't quite match up to some of the others. Some of the lyrics are actually written so beautifully, but... unfortunately most of those are toward the beginning of the song. This song, particularly the second verse, feels like it's kind of saying the same things about love as some of the last few songs. Of course, it does touch on a different aspect of it: a fear of heartbreak and sadness about knowing love will be lost eventually. But... there are many other songs about the same thing that just do it a bit better. I will say though, I love the production. The way the verses build up to a climactic chorus sounds really good, and it feels almost rock-influenced which Laufey doesn't do very often. I do think some other songs on here do it a bit better, but this song is still quite good.

7. California & Me

My rating: 5/5 Great

Alright, we're now halfway through the main album, and this is yet another amazing song. After building up the storyline with love songs, this is where things change... yep, it's a breakup song. It actually has such well-written lyrics: the peaceful relationship is represented by California and the ocean, with an ex leaving her for an "old flame" - a more intense and passionate relationship from the past. And of course, there's the production. The orchestral production sounds so great with Laufey's voice and the storytelling of this song. Not much to say for this one either, it's just another wonderful song from Laufey.

8. Nocturne (Interlude)

My rating: 5/5 Great

(But Hallett, this is an instrumental interlude! This shouldn't count toward the album score!)

Okay, let me clarify something: any song that has musical quality counts toward the album score. I don't exclude instrumental music like this from album scores. The only things that don't count toward my album scores are tracks that are merely meant as spoken interludes and don't have a proper musical structure, e.g. Ariana Grande's Saturn Returns, and Camila Cabello's Koshi Xoxo & 305tilidie. This nocturne counts to the score because it is inherently meant as a music track, even though there are no vocals. This is just as much a piece of music as any other track on this album is. I love this so much. Basically, she uses a piano line from California & Me with melodies from Lovesick & Bewitched, along with some subtle elements of other songs on the album. So, essentially the whole album in one song. The title "Nocturne" makes me think - what does this represent? Is this about things that have happened to her at night (as we hear explicitly in While You Were Sleeping)? Or is it just about what she thinks about at night in a similar manner to Taylor Swift's Midnights? I don't know, but I do know that this song is genius!

9. Promise

My rating: 5/5 Great

Yes! This! This is one of my favorite songs on the whole album. In this part of the album, we begin to hear more reflection on how Laufey feels going through a breakup. This song actually reflects on a specific topic I found intriguing: trying to distance from someone after a breakup, but ultimately being inevitably drawn to someone no matter what. I am kinda obsessed with the production. I know, it's just a regular good-old-fashioned piano ballad, but it's got such a well-crafted production and melody. Also, the storytelling in this song is on another level, in both the lyricism and the evolution of the production. Overall, this song is wonderful. We're now halfway through the complete album.

10. From the Start

My rating: 5/5 Great

This is definitely the biggest hit on this album, and I'm surprised it never made Hits 1 because it was a pretty huge song most places. I guess it wasn't so big on pop radio specifically, but with Hits 1's expansion of genres in recent years, you'd think this song would at least be a Hitbound dropout. Anyway, I can't say this for most albums, but the biggest hit is actually one of my favorites on the album. Obviously the primary genre of the album is jazz, but it's presented in different ways. This song has more of a midtempo bossa nova feel to it, which I honestly think more songs should use. It sounds so great, especially with this type of song. This is also a style of lyricism that Laufey does so well with: reflecting on a breakup, but in a playful & humorous way. "The burning pain listening to you harp on about some new soulmate, 'she's so perfect', blah blah blah." I love it more than I should. This song is so gooooorgeous, I can't say anything to its face, cuz look at its face.

11. Misty

My rating: 4/5 Good

Well, this is good, but definitely not one of the best. This is actually a cover of a jazz standard, which is partially why I'm not giving it full credit as "great", but some covers qualify as great (Taylor Swift's Untouchable and most of her holiday collection EP meet these standards). I find this song a bit boring at times, and the lyrics are pretty good but... well, Laufey obviously didn't write them. I don't know, this cover just doesn't feel like it's doing anything too different from other versions of it, and I prefer her original songs. But of course, there's nothing wrong with covers. This is just a bit generic compared to other songs on the album. But it's still good. This album has no bad songs.

12. Serendipity

My rating: 5/5 Great

Alright, now we're back to the greatness. This song is great, moving from the breakup songs into a territory of a theme this album seems to talk a lot about - accidental love. This song reflects on how she feels lucky to be with who she's found, referring to it as the titular "serendipity". Just like with Promise, I love the piano line possibly more than I should. The way the chorus changes keys is just magical, and I'm not even sure why. This just has such an addicting piano line, gorgeously written lyrics, and is overall yet another (oh my what a) marvelous tune.

13. Letter To My 13 Year Old Self

My rating: 5/5 Great

We're almost to the end of the main album, and the lucky track 13 is a song about being 13, and it's one of this album's strongest songs. This is a song about something that obviously a lot of people have written about, but I think Laufey does it better than most: wishing you could tell your younger self that life will get better. Well, Laufey goes into everything that made her feel weaker at the age of 13 - mostly her differences from others, and feeling like she's falling behind on love (which she references in another song on her previous album), and this song is meant to let herself know that these things improve with age. And the production is magical. I love the way the jazz & pop influences are integrated just as other songs are, but the way it swells sounds so nice. One of my favorites.

14. Bewitched

My rating: 5/5 Great

Alright, we're closing out the main album with a romantic orchestral masterpiece. This is another love song and the title track, representing the feeling of being bewitched by love. The orchestral swells are so amazing. Laufey is truly a genius. This song's production is so well-done that I don't even care that the lyrics rhyme "heart" with "apart" in the chorus - honestly it's done in a way that makes sense and doesn't sound awkward at all. And otherwise the lyrics are actually so poetic and powerful. Great way of closing the album! Alright, now let's begin the bonus tracks!

The Goddess Edition

15. Bored

My rating: 3/5 Decent

Yeah... these bonus tracks are ever so slightly inconsistent. Both my favorite song on the album and my least favorite song on the album are Goddess edition bonus tracks... this is the latter. It's still a decent song, with just as many, if not more, noticeable redeeming qualities as it has slight drawbacks. First off, there's the melody. It seems like a somewhat popular opinion among Lauvers that this song's melody is on another level. Unfortunately, it's very slow-moving and doesn't evolve much, and so after a few minutes I start to get a bit... uh... *whilst searching for literally any other word*... bored. The lyrics are slightly repetitive but kind of creatively written, about someone who makes you... just what the title suggests. I honestly can't say I relate to this specific scenario, but maybe I've just been lucky with not meeting someone who is genuinely boring and doesn't even notice. Anyway, this may be my least favorite song on the album, but it's far from bad.

16. Trouble

My rating: 5/5 Great

Yes! This is an amazing song. This could've fit so well on the main album. I'm going to redirect you to my year-end post of the best songs of 2024, which this song made (most of the songs on this album were ineligible for that year-end list, but the Goddess tracks were). It wasn't exactly a long in-depth review, but I still have two more songs to review and I don't really feel like doing a longer review for it right now.

17. It Could Happen To You

My rating: 4/5 Good

Alright, this song isn't great, but once again... every song on this album redeems itself in some ways. This kinda suffers from the same inevitable issue as Misty in that I can't give Laufey full credit for the song, and it doesn't do that much different from other recordings of the popular jazz standard it's covering. I'm also not a huge fan of the way the production is done here, something about it just doesn't feel as great as some of the other songs on here. I do like the little piano intro and there are some cool sections, but overall, it's not amazing. Still good tho. We just have one song left... the album closer... and it's... yep... THAT song...

18. Goddess

My rating: 6/5 Best Song of 2024

See the link from two songs above :)

Conclusion

Overall album rating: 97% (Great Album)

Wow, I knew this album was great, but after re-listening multiple times, I'm truly impressed and I can't wait to see what Laufey does next. This is now in my top 5 albums I've reviewed on my blog, currently only beaten by Billie Eilish's Hit Me Hard And Soft, Taylor Swift's Evermore, and both Olivia Rodrigo albums.

Favorite songs on main album: Second Best, Nocturne, Promise, From the Start, Letter To My 13 Year Old Self

Favorite song including bonus tracks: Goddess

"Least favorite" songs on main album: Misty, Lovesick

"Least favorite" song including bonus tracks: Bored

That's all for now! Byeeeeeeeeeeee!