A teenager posting music on the internet is so ubiquitous it’s easy to forget how terrifying it must be to “upload” your feelings to the world.
Clairo began her career online, like so many others. Though she was young, it became obvious something heavy buoyed her songwriting. However, the lo-fi bedroom pop Clairo created as a teen hid something in plain sight. This wasn’t just another kid with music software. There were traces of Joni Mitchell’s confessionals. Some of it recalled Motown.
Timeless, moving, not the kind of thing one usually finds in a lo-fi bedroom studio. Clairo’s defining song “Sofia” shares the innocence of her early homemade productions. But it’s more fully realized, honed—an expansion of the possibilities she hinted at in her early songs.
A First Crush
Clairo posted on X that “Sofia” is about her “first ever crushes on women I saw in the media.” She listed director Sofia Coppola …