The Good Witch

 The Good Witch

Maisie Peters: Hit Or Miss?

    Maisie Peters is, in my opinion, one of the most hit or miss artists I listen to. It feels as though each of her songs is either the most incredible bop or the most mind-numbing internet slang filled monstrosity. Despite that, she is one of my most listened to artists, I went to her concert in October and will be seeing her open for Conan Gray later this year, and I have worn my History Of Man bracelet every day since that concert. 

edit: I started this post a while ago. Long before she was even announced as an Eras Tour opener. I am so proud of her and in no way do I mean to jump on the hate train for this talented young woman. This was my unbiased opinion of her current music. I do not agree with the distasteful, mean comments being left on her post. 

Track 1: The Good Witch

    The Good Witch is a perfect opening track, because while it does have wonderful lyrics, a calm but interesting backing, and an overall witchy atmosphere, the outro is also the perfect segway into Coming Of Age, creating a sort of introduction paragraph for this album in an effective and enticing way. 

Track 4: Body Better

    I say Body Better is a hit. Does it have the best lyrics? Maybe not. Has Peters done better? Maybe. Do I care? Absolutely not. This song is a bop. Whether or not it is the bop is for you to decide. I love it. The pop beat and fun atmosphere of this song make it wonderful, and that's really all there is to say. Fun music for fun people. 

Track 5: Want You Back

    My opinion on Want You Back sways regularly. Sometimes I love it, sometimes I do not, but I am still going to put it as a hit. Although it has a mellow, borderline boring instrumental, and Peters chooses not to experiment with the vocals of this song, I think the songwriting makes up for the faults of the musicality. Personally the lines, "You left like an assassin, maybe that's for the best/'cause if you'd told me what would happen I think I would've begged/so you got to be a coward and I salvaged a little self-respect"

Track 8: Lost The Breakup

    Despite the flack this song faced online, I love it to death. There is no performance that I think about more than hers of this song on Fallon. While her performance may not shine, the song is so fun that it completely makes up for it. The problem people have with this song is that it is not meant to be taken seriously, it is just fun music and they are bitter and old and cannot handle it. 

Track 9: Wendy

    I read the original tale of Peter Pan And Wendy a little under a month ago, which made me appreciate this song a million times more. Well known, this novel is ridden with misogyny, where the lost boys are constantly expecting Wendy to act as a mother to them despite her young age. Wendy has to give up her whole life, her own mother, and her family in order to serve her brothers and the rest of their gang simply because she decided one night to chase her own desires and imagination, and unknown to Peter, the weight of this responsibility weighs her down until she can no longer handle it and reluctantly drags her brothers back to London. Although Wendy portrays a sort of buzzkill, a party pooper, she has just decided that she would not like to give up her own childhood to mature in order to keep the lost boys young. Peters does an incredible job relating this story to her own life, depicting her relationship as this parasitic display of maturity as well, and questioning the future within such a life. I adore anything Peter Pan because I can act pretentious despite classics making up like .2% of what I read, so this song strikes right to the heart. (Also if you love reading about parasitic relationships I would recommend the short story "The Feather Pillow" by Horacio Quiroga #englishresearchessay)

Track 10: Run

    I may be dumb as a rock, but I do not entirely understand this song. I think it is sarcastic, about how men cannot be trusted even when they do the right thing, but I just hate it. I am sure there is some girl out there that loves this song and would connect with it, but this one just feels like it would be used in a republican talking point about misandrists and feminists hating men in order to shift focus away from the patriarchy. That sounded very rad-fem of me, but I do not really care because my anonymous online persona is about as relevant as this song. I am not a music video person, although I do believe this song has one, and the fact that I do not know whether or not it does for sure tells you about as much as you need to know about my care for this song. It should never have been a single, and overall was just forgot about as it should have been. 

Track 11: Two Weeks Ago

    I would write about this song but I think I have listened to it max 5 times because it just struck me as "mid pop ballad about wanting to get back with your ex". Boring lyrics, boring beat, boring song. From what I remember.

Track 12: BSC

    Batshit Crazy, or BSC is only a year old and yet it feels so outdated already. The trend of those "Little Miss _" children's books passed about 2 years ago and nobody ever hears about them now, but the lyric "You made me little miss unstable" is permanently embedded into this song. Peters tried to put a lighthearted spin on the trends of the time, and while fun last year, the song quickly lost relevancy and importance. I rarely remember it exists, and even when I do I do not decide to play it. 

Track 14: There It Goes

    There It Goes was my favorite when I first listened to this album at midnight on YouTube on my mini TV because Spotify was not loading, so I have a special place in my heart for it. The perfect pop beat combined with catchy, relatable lyrics, and a wonderful live performance shapes it into an incredible pop song. It is not trying to be revolutionary or philosophical, but it is just plain fun music. The overall vibes make it just a sweet and lovely song about self-acceptance that nobody can really hate. I think it is the perfect song to show someone who is trying to become more of a Maisie Peters fan because it is the perfect introduction to her style. Hit. 

Track 15: History Of Man

    History Of Man concludes the album as my favorite track, as you could have probably guessed from my opening paragraph. I absolutely adore this song and its message, and it serves as the perfect conclusion to this album. Foremost, The underlying beat mimics that of the opening track The Good Witch creating a perfect sandwich and tying up the album in a nice little bow. The serious, feminist message of this song also contrasts the more lighthearted, fun atmosphere the album had at the start, leaving the listener thinking about how each song connects. History Of Man challenges the notions of true love and the gender roles of typical relationships through lyrics such as "I'm sure there was heartbreak/inside the walls of Jericho" and "Women's hearts are lethal weapons/did you hold mine and feel threatened?". Peters suggests that although love may seem benign and peaceful, it has the power to shift tides and create discord. Jericho's mention as well implies that, even though there may be a protective paradise in love, there can always be problems. Additionally, the famous lyric "The men start wars yet Troy hates Helen" comments on the role women play in heartbreak, and how even if they may not be the cause, they always take the blame. Peters' reflections on women's belittlement and sacrifice in romantic relations through these metaphors relates to the very real, modern problems she experiences in her own relationships. The title of the song History Of Man, originates from the lyric, "I've tried to rewrite it but I can't/it's the history, the history of man". Peters highlights the patterns of romantic relationships and the burden of those relationships played on women in the past and of today. Furthermore, the phrase 'history of man' accentuates the theme that the focus is not on women but on men. Although she tells the tale of relationships as a woman, she titles the song History Of Man to reiterate that in her relationship she took more of a supporting role and played along in the background, whereas in reality she was the reason for the relationship. Although it was a two person effort, one of those people gets overlooked simply due to their gender, which was the exact feeling Maisie Peters emulated in her perfect song History Of Man.