The old Taylor may be dead, but Nashville’s rising star, Charli Adams, isn’t yet. Settling in Music City at the ripe age of seventeen after a conservative, Christian upbringing in Alabama, Adams has wasted no time in putting more than just physical distance between her and her past. Coloring over it with a grown woman’s reverence for the experiences that led her here—whether detrimental or not—she is determined to prove that her youth is only a temporary circumstance. Her potential—a permanent fixture.
Following the release of her debut EP earlier this year, Adams has returned with more than just the expected 2020 lockdown diary. With her debut LP, Bullseye, slated to be released in 2021, her first single, “Didn’t Make It,” out today via Color Study, bursts with emotion, life, and a hint of her signature nostalgia.
Returning with not only a new shade of hair, but an entirely new attitude, Adams surprises with an elegant pop song that seems to have evolved naturally from her original country roots. While Good At Being Young dabbled with ’80s influences, trying to strike the balance between an old country bar guitar and a contemporary beat, “Didn’t Make It” simply ceases to try. Produced by Brian Kierulf (Lady Gaga, Mike Posner), it wraps Adams around its shimmering blanket of creamy synths, comforted by a pulsing beat that lights up the space like a city skyline. She slides into this new space like it’s a pair of old, worn-in shoes, recounting her memories of a lost love with deft grace. “When there’s memories and nostalgia tied to someone, it’s hard to let go and accept it for what it is,” she notes, marking her new track as her own personal “coming-of-age” story, where she may have yet much to learn, but she is finally unlearning much of what held her back before.
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