Not in Chronological Order

The debut full-length album from singer Julia Michaels, 2021s Not in Chronological Order, is a smart, swaggering pop album that balances big hooks with her fiery, empowered charisma. Its a style shes been honing for years as a songwriter behind-the-scenes for artists like Justin Bieber, Maroon 5, Selena Gomez, and others. Here, she grabs the spotlight, nicely building upon the anthemic, genre-bending rock, electronic dance-pop, and R&B that made her previous solo tracks, including her 2016 Kygo collaboration Carry Me and her 2017 orchestral-accented single Issues, such welcome surprises. Working with a handful of producers, including the Monsters & Strangerz, G Koop, German, and others, Michaels has crafted an album packed with universally relatable themes of falling in love, getting your heart broken, and wishing you were a stronger, more independent person. Michaels gives you the sense that shes writing from experience and transforming her emotions into cathartic pop anthems. It doesnt hurt that she also has a warm, expressive voice, marked by a dusting of vocal fry that can make her sound vulnerable and sweet one minute and wickedly intimidating the next. Its a flirtatious dichotomy she plays with throughout Not in Chronological Order, moving deftly between romantic longing and burn-it-all down relationship jealousy. Its a vibe perhaps best expressed on the album-opening All Your Exes, in which Michaels wills herself into being the one and only, past, present, and future object of her lovers desire. That the song starts as an acoustic ballad and ends in an anthemic fury of rock guitar bombast speaks to Michaels knack for capturing how the ups and downs of a relationship can feel so genuinely dramatic that the only way to express them is in song. ~ Matt Collar