BITE-SIZED: It Was Good Until It Wasn't (Kehlani, 2020)

This review was sketched at the end of 2020, but I forgot about it. 

Coronavirus has basically ruined my concentration. I spend most of time watching/reading the news. 

Weirdly, quarantine has made me more patient with albums. There have been some really good releases from last and this year which I have been listening to end to end. Dua Lipa's Future Nostalgia was a nice escape, Tinashe's Songs for You was a return to form that synced with the mood of this year, and I'm just getting into Victoria Monet's Jaguar.

In the time since Kehlani's last release, I shifted focus to a couple other musicians. While We Wait was okay, but none of the songs really stuck. I would be curious to check it out now.

It Was Good Until It Wasn't sounds better played as a piece. It is a concept album in the truest sense of the word - I have tried to listen to individual songs, but they do not really stick in the brain in the same way as their first album. 

That is not a criticism - in the cumulative effect of It Was Good Until It Wasn't, it feels closer to the moodiness of their mixtapes.

I do not hate their debut LP, but I still think my favourite song they have ever done is '1st Position'. 

Maybe it has something to do with lockdown, but there is a level of contemplation to the lyrics and the production here that I wanted to sit with for a while.

I cannot really point to a single track - they build upon each other in a way that feels cathartic. To what end, or whose end, I could not really say.

The year is barely in the rearview, but I think this might be one of the albums I associate with 2020.