The best, most perfect piece of music on the planet lately. The only song you need to hear. Until tomorrow.
First things first, shout to Kississippi’s Zoe Allaire Reynolds for offering some representation for pop women of size in a post-Adele-weight-loss world. The pressures of the music industry are insane on all levels, but if the conversation about Adele’s body has taught us anything, not much has changed in the last fifty years. Seeing only incredibly skinny bodies constantly is oppressive! I just wanted to acknowledge that she’s facing different pressures and assumptions right off the bat before diving into the music. Reynolds is an incredible pop songwriter, and I’ve been a huge fan of her lyrics and melodies since 2018, when she signed to Triple Crown Records for her album Sunset Blush. Though she’d written and released two EPs before that record — 2014’s I Can Feel You In My Hair Still and 2015’s We Have No Future — Sunset Blush was a moment of mainstream recognition for Kississippi’s work. She’s stayed independent though, even if her songs are frequently compared to Taylor Swift and other diva-level ingenues.
After touring behind that record, Reynolds got back in the studio and started working on this year’s Mood Ring, which builds off her first album in every conceivable way. The writing is tighter and smarter, the production is more lush, and more calculated, and Reynolds’ voice has never sounded sweeter or stronger. The entire album is well worth a listen, but my absolute favorite song on this second record is called “Moonover,” and the whimsical title alone is proof of how strong the writing is, because the song isn’t silly or moony at all. In fact, it’s a deconstruction of a relationship potentially gone wrong from the perspective of someone that saw it going a different way. That return, to the old vision of something that seemed permanent, is what makes the song so poignant. It’s clear things don’t go exactly right, but for the dreamer, at least, the dream remains. That’s what a perfect pop song should do: preserve the dream. Listen to the song above or on Spotify
Listen above or on Spotify here. Cinnamon’s new Song of the Day playlist is on Spotify here.
