{"id":553596,"date":"2026-07-22T06:53:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T06:53:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/553596\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T06:53:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T06:53:13","slug":"im-obsessed-with-audrey-hoberts-girl-failure-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/553596\/","title":{"rendered":"I’m Obsessed With Audrey Hobert’s Girl Failure Music"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last year I shocked myself by enjoying a few songs by JJ Abrams\u2019 daughter, Gracie Abrams, who is a pop singer trapped in the Khia asylum<\/a>. I think of her as one of Taylor Swift\u2019s many children, singers of sad songs about mean men and what it feels like to be perpetually 26. After not enjoying Abrams\u2019 new album Daughter From Hell<\/a> as much as songs like \u201cThat\u2019s So True\u201d and \u201cI Love You, I\u2019m Sorry,\u201d I realized that this was because she wasn\u2019t working with her longtime collaborator Audrey Hobert anymore.<\/p>\n

Once you listen to Hobert\u2019s album, Who\u2019s The Clown, you hear her signature styles all over the songs she\u2019s co-written. She loves these bouncy little melodies, and she has a pop punk-ish tendency to end each line with a little \u201cwoah-oh.\u201d She\u2019s a wordy songwriter, and she uses her language to create a percussiveness on top of the melody. The bridge in \u201cI Love You, I\u2019m Sorry\u201d is a great example of this, where Abrams releases a flurry of unsaid admissions to her ex (\u201cyou were the best, but you were the worst, as sick as it sounds I loved you first\u201d). Untethered from Abrams\u2019 preciousness and penchant for melodrama, Hobert reveals herself to be a very funny songwriter and a powerful storyteller.<\/p>\n

When describing this album to a friend, I said that it gave me all the feelings that Swifties get when they listen to Taylor. I have never so acutely felt like a songwriter was reading my diary\u2014at least not since I was a teenager listening to Rilo Kiley in my bedroom. She crams every verse with as many details as she possibly can, deepening their specificity. But they don\u2019t feel like these scenarios are ripped from her diary. They\u2019re little stories, slices of life that you might have experienced too. It wasn\u2019t too surprising to learn she has a background in television writing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Take, for instance, the scene Hobert sets in the song \u201cSex in the City,\u201d a song where she wistfully imagines what it might be like to be Carrie Bradshaw, a person who wears fabulous clothes and has tons of sex.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe seat is up, the place is haunted,\u201d she sings about a random hookup. \u201cHe’s heating up and eating up a pizza pocket. I wanted one, but he forgot it. He’s off his meds and he’s an artist.\u201d<\/p>\n

I have been in that haunted apartment. I have made this exact mistake! There\u2019s something about the girl failure nature of these songs that really has its hooks in me. Sometimes I get a little worried about the character in Hobert\u2019s songs\u2014that girl drinks a lot. But it never gets dour. Hobert has a sense of humor about everything, even things that are depressing. In the album\u2019s opener, the very funny \u201cI Like To Touch People,\u201d she sings, \u201cI grew up with a people pleasing mother, so now I have problems.\u201d Girl, same.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Victimhood isn\u2019t something that Hobert is much interested in exploring, unlike many of her women singer songwriter contemporaries. Her songs have a more interesting tension in them: can you have everything you want and not let it change you?<\/p>\n

The character that Hobert creates on Who\u2019s The Clown is awkward and very aware of her flaws. In fact, she\u2019s always drinking and smoking weed to regulate her emotions\u2014after agonizing over a crush, she\u2019s \u201c4\/20, so vacant tanning on the roof.\u201d It never veers into \u201cYou Belong With Me\u201d territory; she is writing songs from the persona of a fully adult woman for whom high school is a distant memory. Hobert never really lashes out at the world for her insecurities. She tries to embrace them. The most interesting love story on this album is with herself.<\/p>\n

Unlike Gracie Abrams\u2019 work, I don\u2019t really know what a teenager would get out of this pop album, but it really speaks to me. It\u2019s mostly about being a huge fuck up\u2014wanting to chase your dreams but not being able to put away laundry. \u201cBowling Alley\u201d is all about not being able to decide if you want to go out or stay in. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t need to be about me all the time,\u201d she sings. \u201cBut I\u2019ll be honest, the bowling alley felt nice.\u201d<\/p>\n

I think these themes\u2014failure, embracing yourself despite it\u2014are best expressed on \u201cPhoebe,\u201d the penultimate track. It\u2019s certainly the most blunt about it. Hobert layers a couple of different ideas on top of each other. She moves to New York because she wants to be a star, but she gets her heart broken and her confidence shattered. This character is white-knuckling through reality, trying to convince herself that staying in and watching Friends is still satisfying to her. She wants to still believe she can make it, because that idea has become a load-bearing pillar for her mental health.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy else would he want me?\u201d she sings in the chorus. \u201cI think I\u2019ve got a fucked up face.\u201d<\/p>\n

This song knocked the wind out of me when I first heard it. I did also move to New York to be a star, and that road has been very difficult for me. I feel like in a lot of ways, trying to achieve my dreams has made me really crazy. I don\u2019t know what else I have to offer the world other than being a really good writer at this point. I kind of put all my points into that skill\u2014too late to start over.<\/p>\n

Hobert doesn\u2019t leave us there, though. Her songs give you that little shot of cathartic release you get from a good television show.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat thought used to haunt me, until I fell in its warm embrace,\u201d she continues in the chorus. \u201cNow I don\u2019t sweat the acne. It\u2019s a pain, but it goes away.\u201d<\/p>\n

My favorite lyric, though, is on the album\u2019s closer, \u201cSilver Jubilee.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanna make it,\u201d she sings. \u201cBut it\u2019s fun to be a normal girl.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last year I shocked myself by enjoying a few songs by JJ Abrams\u2019 daughter, Gracie Abrams, who is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553597,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[146,85,46,409],"class_list":["post-553596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=553596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}