In 2022, Brooklyn’s Colatura delivered a debut album which paid homage to aughts-era radio pop-rock as much as it drafted off the 2020s dream-pop revival. Following their And Then I’ll Be Happy LP later this year will be an EP titled If I’m Being Honest which serves as a continuation of those split aesthetic allegiances as Jennica Best narrates the proceedings with wistful vocals chronicling bouts of self-reflection.
Today we’re getting the first taste of that EP with the breezy-yet-melancholy “I Wanna Get Better,” a cut that balances Best’s light vocals and fairly relatable lyrics with whirring shoegaze guitar on its soaring pop chorus. “I wrote this song when I was feeling stuck in life, like I’d let my younger self down,” the songwriter shares. “In high school, I had all these dreams for the future and felt like I had so much promise, but adulthood hasn’t quite measured up and has been a lot harder than I anticipated. So the song is a love letter to my past self—an apology for not yet living up to her expectations and a reminder to savor that youthful innocence. It’s nostalgic, a little self-pitying, but ultimately still hopeful.”
True to the song’s message, the band filmed a music video for the track which sees a high-school-aged Best interacting with her present-day self on the streets of New York in between scenes of Colatura rocking a school auditorium. “We shot the video around the UWS of Manhattan, where I grew up, and even filmed the band shots in my old elementary school auditorium,” she shares. Check out the video below, and expect If I’m Being Honest to drop August 1 via Easy Does It Records.
