Diego Valdes

 

I’m certain most of you have heard the song “Golden Hour”, by JVKE, at least once in these past few years, perhaps you heard it on the radio, on social media, or you listened to it yourself because someone else recommended it to you; it even has more than a billion listens on Spotify, as well as many versions with different musical artists writing their own lines for the same song.

 

Have you ever wondered, however, if this song belongs to any sort of album or if there are any songs related to this one? Well, you’d be correct! And just like Golden Hour, these other songs are all connected with romantic love.

 

The album’s titled this is what ____ feels like is an album featuring 12 songs with a similar theme like Golden Hour, what makes this album so special, however, is that it is divided into four “chapters” with three songs each; these chapters represent a certain phase of a cycle that someone may go through when in a relationship, these phases are: love, heartbreak, depression and acceptance, and their respective songs try to express and demonstrate the feelings that someone may feel during each of these four phases.

 

The first chapter is about falling in love, mentioning many fantasies about being together with that "special someone" and promising that such a love will last forever, all whilst expressing emotions of bliss, happiness, and especially love.

 

The second chapter is about heartbreak, possibly because of "cheating" or simply the relationship falling apart; our character here constantly mentions the failure of realizing what their partner "truly was" and calling them a snake, which also appears on this stage's cover, climbing up the tree's branches. The songs in this chapter now show emotions of anger, distress, and possibly hate.

 

The third chapter is about the depression that may come after a heartbreak; throughout the songs it makes a lot of questions about whether their love was even real or not, about the tragic aftermath of the breakup, and how hard it can be to move on, as if the singer himself was depressed and suffers from self-doubt. This is my personal favorite chapter of the album, especially the song “wonder if she loves me” because it has a melody and a message that I really adore; in addition, I enjoy this chapter a lot because it has helped me feel so much better whenever I feel down, and I believe it can do the same for other struggling teenagers out there.

 

The fourth and final chapter is about moving out of love, or the act of moving on from a relationship, it's the phase in which our character finally starts to accept that the relationship is over, and they're now ready to move forward in life, maybe even finding someone else instead (as hinted in the last song). This chapter demonstrates a few emotions of self-doubt and fear, but also acceptance and newfound happiness.

 

In conclusion, this album is really special because it’s something that a lot of people, especially teenagers, can relate to. Perhaps a downside of this album that I can mention is how, when listening them on repeat, you get tired of them pretty easily, and the short duration of the songs doesn’t help; other than that, though, I believe that JVKE manages to express these feelings almost flawlessly, creating stories that his public audience can connect to, and not only having direct and standard lyrics, but also adding a few hidden meanings and figurative words to make each song even more poetic and meaningful; all of this, in return, makes each of the album’s songs such an immersive and full experience. Hopefully, after giving these songs a listen, you’ll truly “fall in love” with the album.