If you were tuned in to pop music this summer, you’re probably familiar with the name Chappell Roan. She skyrocketed to fame after opening for Olivia Rodrigo’s GUTS tour and performing at several high-profile music festivals, drawing record-breaking crowds for her distinctly amazing voice, her unapologetically queer lyrics, and her iconic campy outfits.
Not to be that girl, but I’ve listened to Chappell since 2021 when I discovered “Pink Pony Club” and “Kaleidoscope.” Now, I’m not telling you this just to brag that I knew her first (okay, maybe a little bit). I’m also revealing this information because I’ve already found the next effervescent pop star who will capture the hearts of girls and gays. I may be fine with bragging that I knew artists before they were popular, but I will not gatekeep.
Maude Latour is not new to the music game; she’s been making music since 2018. I discovered her breathlessly evocative sound in 2019 when she released her first EP Starsick and I immediately fell in love. Her early songs are raw and experimental, expressing deep emotion while exploring different styles of pop music. Her sound and philosophical messages are reminiscent of Lorde, with the same bubbly uniqueness and queer themes as our queen Chappell. Since her first EP, Latour has released several more in addition to a few singles here and there. Fast forward to about a month ago: Latour dropped her first full studio album entitled Sugar Water.
The Concept
Latour has always been a very conceptual artist. She majored in philosophy while attending Columbia University and the influence of her studies is deeply visible in her music. Love has always been a thematic pillar in her music, and Sugar Water is the culmination of her epiphany that love and loss are the same thing. Latour shares with Atwood Magazine, “[P]ostmodernism is trying to suggest, what if there’s this world that can’t be defined by its fallenness, and we still have access to wholeness, and wholeness is not the opposite of the fallenness…Loss and love, death and living, are the same thing, two sides of the same coin.”
The name Sugar Water comes from a piece of Tolstoy writing about a fable. A man is hanging from a branch in an old well. He cannot climb out because he is being hunted by a ferocious beast, but he cannot drop to the bottom of the well because a hungry dragon awaits. While suspended between these two unknowable oblivions, he reaches out to taste a drop of honey. This is compared to the sweetness of life before you die, and Latour grapples with how to enjoy this sweetness even knowing that death and loss are inevitable. Her eventual conclusion is that the absence of something lost implies its presence. Grief implies love. Each cannot exist without the other, however frustrating and confusing and gut-wrenching that may be.
For Latour, this album is a tribute to all those she has loved and lost. Her narrative style of lyricism is how she remembers these people, places, and stories. She celebrates them, curses them, and forgives them. The album tells the sequential story of this revelation.
Highlights
“Cursed Romantics” — pop perfection about reckless hope in the face of certain doom
“Too Slow” — an ode to college friends, nights out, and the breathlessness of youth
“Whirpool” — a dizzy acceptance of the unavoidable hand of fate
“Comedown” — the helplessness that sets in after losing someone
“Summer of Love” — diving headfirst into love again despite fear
“Cosmic Superstar Girl” — the ache and satisfaction of knowing you gave a relationship your all, even though it didn’t work out
“7 (interlude)” — the thesis of the album: life is so short and fleeting, don’t forget to enjoy the sweetness
In Conclusion
Maude Latour has really come into her own with Sugar Water. I won’t call her “the next Chappell Roan,” because I don’t really think that’s accurate;Â I think she’s the first Maude Latour. She’s truly unique in her own right and, especially as a college student, I resonate with her lyrics in a distinct way. I can’t recommend her discography enough, especially this masterpiece of a debut album.
For more from Maude:
Listen to Maude Latour on Spotify
Watch Maude Latour’s Music Videos on Youtube