Steady Holiday - Nobody’s Watching (stream/review)
Steady Holiday - Nobody’s Watching
Steady Holiday is the stage name of Dre Babinski, a singer-songwriter that deserves your attention. Because this record is deeply original in its lyrical and musical themes. She’s plumbing the depths of her own soul here.
I don’t know if I’ve ever heard someone try to represent deep moral self-doubt in music. And I think Babinski succeeds here by crafting a noir-ish soundscape awash with bitter melancholy. But, even as the music around her is sly and shadowy, her voice is one of an innocent, deeply uncertain. It feels like someone dealing with their darker impulses, which is of course one of the main lyrical themes as well.
In Mothers she’s doubting her own motives for doing good deeds, in Who’s Gonna Stop Us she’s dealing with a troubling attraction to power and its abuse, and in Nobody’s Watching she’s singing a cheerful ditty about acting according to a kill-or-be-killed philosophy. This might sound like weighty stuff, but all three of these songs manage to be really fun to listen to.
The rest of the album keeps exploring these themes for its entire length. Sometimes with an ironic jolliness, sometimes with a weighty sense of despair. She sometimes gives up the fight and leans into her unwanted thoughts, and sometimes she resists them.
Of course, unwanted thoughts aren’t really a reason to villain-ize oneself. We’re only human, and we should define ourselves by how we deal with our imperfections and passions. Babinski seems to come to a similar conclusion by the end of the album. Strongly recommended.