Track of the Week

 Now we’re officially into Grammy’s week, I thought it would be appropriate to choose a Grammy-nominated track for this week’s track of the week. Of course, given Boygenius’ six Grammy nominations, it was difficult to choose one track to feature, but I landed on my first favourite from this album before the album even came out: ‘Not Strong Enough’.

This is one of those songs that I could go on about all day, especially in terms of the instrumentation. It has to be one of my favourite uses of acoustic guitar in a song because somehow the song manages to sound full and almost like it isn’t acoustic-based, and then every now and then the guitar cuts through the mix and you realise as a listener that this epic song is actually using a backbone of almost entirely acoustic guitar and drums, which is frankly pretty sick. That said, one of the things I love most about this song is that it fully encompasses Boygenius’ attitude to instrumentation in that they don’t limit themselves at all. This song has brass, it has guitar and bass and it’s actually really drum heavy and, truthfully, the eye they have for what instrumentation can work where is something I really deeply admire. 

Lyrically, of course it’s brilliant it’s Boygenius, but my favourite moment has to be the transition from the chorus into ‘Always an angel, never a God’ which is alone one of the best lyrics on this record and something that I think about, honestly, probably more than I should. The moment where the harmony changes and the line becomes minor truthfully amazes me every time. There is very little that feels quite this song, which is why I would say it deserves all of the critical acclaim it’s received and more, and I for one am hoping it gets the Grammy!