THE SKINNY: As Bnny gets at in the title of her sophomore album, there have been millions of songs written about love. But it’s not just music. It’s films, poems, books, diary entries, texts, dating app bios, heartbroken letters, apology notes, and hopeful first messages. Every day, the topic is expanded in countless ways, but somehow still remains relatable.
Bnny adds eleven more to the pile. Across the record, the lyricism dives deep into the topic but heads straight for its shadowy corners, nuanced nooks and strange, liminal in-betweens. A high proportion of those millions of songs written on the topic deal with click to read the grand gestures and the clear places of happiness or heartbreak, painting them out to be permanent emotional states. However, that’s not how it is handled here.
One Million Love Songs is washed with a unique sense of impermanence that falls across it like a shimmery veil. Soundtracked by the Mazzy Star-like, twinkly take on light grunge, it translates the tender but elusive sentiments perfectly. Laid out clearly on Nothing Lasts’, this is a record that sees love as a fleeting moment that is bliss when it’s there, pain when it’s all too quickly gone, but utterly worth it. It’s an album made up of vignettes of two hands grabbing at each other for a minute, then letting go. In that way, it feels like a perfect modern antidote for the historic genre of the love song.
What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done? Now ask me ’cause I need to tell someone, Jessica Viscius sings on Sweet’. That was the line that really floored me on this album. The weirdness of dating where you’re introducing yourself and figuring out how best to do it, is an uneasy feeling that feels more commonplace than ever. You’re trying to figure out how to show yourself to someone. In the track, Viscius also compacts it with a strain of loneliness. It’s that push-and-pull sensation of wanting to know someone, wanting them to know you, but also wanting them to want to know you, asking unprompted and caring.
Another highlight comes on the flipside of that, in the cautious euphoria of when you might have found it. So happy I could scream, she declares on Changes’. Instead of the frantic and excited yell I was braced for, Viscius lets out a gentle howl. Even without words, the simple sound holds so much: doubt, hope, fear, nervousness. It’s the ing stab of heartbreak’s pain but to run forward into something new. Without needing it to be too big or the emotions too clear, Bnny simply presents it and trusts that, in some way, we’ve felt it.
As they present these short story-like songs, each one looking at a different state of love, Bnny honour the vast and inexhaustible depth of the feeling. From the seeming shallowing point of first texts and conversations down to the darkest pits of gut-wrenching heartache or trying to navigate life together, there is a moment and marker for it all. Each is as beautiful as the last; it’s a strangely affirming release that says wherever you’re at, and no matter what, love is beautiful even in its in-between weirdness.
One Million Love Songs track by track
Missing’: A tender and seductive start, Bnny welcomes you into the world of the album with a simple song that packs a poetic punch right to your heart. An anthem for the weirdness of moving on and trying again, it dares you to love after hurt. [4.5/5]
Good Stuff’: This is a song about managing to move on and break up while holding onto the good parts of it all. I personally cannot relate, but I’m sure people who have learnt the ability to be cool and chill about any or all emotions can. [3.5/5]
Crazy, Baby’: Write one quick, cause nothing lasts, Bnny sings on the entire sentiment of a love song. Presenting another vignette on the feeling, the album reveals itself as a series of snapshots, trying to nail down what the emotion even means or looks like at all. [3.5/5]
Something Blue’: Within each of these pieces, listeners are let into a little self-contained story. Matching the music to the look and feel like a perfect soundtrack, Something Blue’ is a chugging song, sounding just like the runaway, eloping feelings that colour it. [3.5/5]
Screaming, Dreaming’: Wading into darker, heavier and grungier waters, this song sounds exactly like my brain the second I have a crush on anyone. [3.5/5]
Sweet’: What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done? Now ask me ’cause I need to tell someone. In one like Bnny perfectly nails the feeling of getting to know someone new and teasing with not only their history, but how to introduce your own. A beautifully nuanced track with a Mazzy Star shine to it it’s a standout. [4.5/5]
Nothing Lasts’: The temperance across this entire album feels so beautiful yet painfully tender. In the wake of the loss of her partner, Nothing Less’ feels like an attempt to love again amidst grief, like a reminder that life might be fleeting, the feeling might be too, but it’s worth it. [4/5]
Bnny One Million Love Songs’ album review: vignettes of in-betweens and intricacies
Rainbow’: A piece that deserves to be written into the world’s tome of tricky love songs, Bnny navigates the joy of feeling with the gloom of depression with expertise. [3.5/5]
Changes’: So happy I could scream, Bnny sings, punctuating it with a soft howl. Capturing the feeling of loving again with that simple sentiment, this entire album is a triumph of capturing hard-to-explain moments. [4.5/5]
Get It Right’: If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. That’s the message of this track that tells you to get back on Hinge, back in the saddle and back in the race. [4/5]
No One’: After ten songs on the lengths and breadths of love and the suggestion that a million more could be written, no one loves me anymore is the last thing Bnny sings. In her voice, a mix of sadness and nonchalance battles it out between a message of loneliness and freedom because isn’t that exactly what being single is? [3/5]
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