When Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” flooded suburban televisions tuned to MTV in 1991, it symbolized a changing era for music. Clad in grungy flannel amidst a sea of carefully coiffed, pop-stylized “hair bands”, Kurt Cobain stood out like a sore thumb—and for good reason. While Nirvana may not have single handedly changed the landscape of popular music overnight, they certainly signaled a changing tide.
Alessia Cara is not Nirvana, not even close, and the sound of her newest album Know-It-All isn’t at all comparable to the “Seattle Sound” of the ’90s. But the dismissive nature of grunge that destroyed the opulence and excess of ’80s hair metal can be seen here. Cara’s bleak, self-reflective lyrics reflect the current state of the millennial condition and, with this, the changing tide of mainstream music in the 2010s.
This seems to be a common theme within the past five years—strong female musicians shining through a musical era dominated by the celebration of excess. Like Lorde’s Pure Heroine, Lana Del Rey’s Born to Die, or Halsey’s Badlands, Know-It-All works to dismiss the stereotypes associated with millennials and their Baby Boomer-labeled “non-problems”. It’s as if Cara is a more mainstream, less jaded, socially acceptable Lorde. Her lyrics are less cryptic and less complex, but her vocals are just as exceptional.
Know-It-All tells the inspiring story of a nineteen-year-old girl that caught her big break on YouTube, now struggling with coming into adulthood in the limelight. Such is the case on “Four Pink Walls,” a song inspired by her hometown bedroom, and “Seventeen” a lamentation about her failure to recognize the value of her parents’ advice as a teen.
Other cuts reflect a powerful feminist ideology that underlines the album as a whole. This is exemplified in “Scars To Your Beautiful”, a number that calls for recognition of inner beauty and the problematic nature of unattainable societal body ideals. As Cara stated about the track: “We are women. We are fighters, we are leaders, we are intelligent, kind, confident, and amazing. And fuck you.”
“Here” is certainly the best cut from Know-It-All. The R&B vibes are reminiscent of a mid-’90s TLC song. As an ode to the digital-age introverts in their teens and early twenties, Cara laments the existential void her peers fill with partying, drugs, and hook-ups—supposedly essential parts of millennial culture of which, frankly, Cara is uninterested in and would prefer to avoid.
Know-It-All should be admired in that it represents an era in which it’s now cool to rebel against what’s “cool.” Drugs, partying, and drinking to excess has become the norm. The definition of rebellion has fundamentally changed, as it is now to dismiss such themes. To Cara, Partying is uninteresting, wasteful, unsatisfying, and doesn’t fill that vast, omnipresent existential void we all often feel. Cara’s looking for something greater, and she inspires us to follow her lead.
Listen to “Here” by Alessia Cara below.

Follow Shelby Chapman on Twitter @ShelbyEm15.