Girl Scout Stake Claim to Their Youth on Granny Music

The only thing stronger than music’s power to bring people together is its ability to rip them apart. Even history’s greatest songwriting pairs weren’t fully without their share of conflict. Especially in the later Beatles years, John Lennon would allegedly tell Paul McCartney that some of his compositions sounded too old fashioned, dubbing particular songs he didn’t care for granny music, for their perceived toothless whimsy. Call it urban legend, or swear to it as fact, it does remain true that young artists face a particular pressure to market their own youth. They are often paradoxically forced to maintain a visage of energy and innovation, all while making sure not to make it too obvious that they are still young and vulnerable.

This is to say that for Girl Scout, an unapologetically young rock band, to name their second ever release Granny Music they have a keen awareness of where they sit in the larger scope of cultural consumption. Rather than rejecting their youthfulness, they embrace it, demanding to be listened to not despite it, but because of it. While the Stockholm quartet came roaring out of the gates on Real Life Human Garbage earlier this year, they have even more to say this time around. Through infectious power-pop grooves, tight bursts of noise and piercingly clear vocal rawness, their sounds prove as generational as they can possibly position them. Girl Scout are Emma Jansson (guitar, vocals), Evelina Arvidsson Eklind (bass, vocals), Per Lindberg (drums) and Viktor Spasov (guitar) and, on their second EP, they already know exactly what they are doing.

Jansson opens Granny Music with an order: “Hang up the phone,” she sings on “Monster,” “Honey I’m home.” The band has arrived, and they demand that, for the next 20 minutes, you better pay attention. The track is punchy and straightforward; though it evades the whiny theatrics of teen angst, it comes with more than its fair share of self-loathing. “I am an animal / Weary and disturbed,” Jansson wails, “Just give me what I want / I’m a monster.”

Producer Ali Chant plays with the band’s straightforward cleanness on “Millionaire”, at first muffling the steady guitar riff and compressing Jansson’s usually soaring vocals into a bleak banality, as she sings of an even more languorous reality, “You’re a block of cinder in the rain / Nobody came to your birthday party / You could die of shame / You are alone.” The track opens up, showcasing the band’s versatility in composition, production and performance, as Jansson vocalizes as if she is her own horn section. The lyrics in “Millionaire”’s hook cut to the crux of the band’s project on this EP, “And nobody ever listens,” the song goes. “If I got a dollar every time they said ‘when you get older’ / I’d be a millionaire”

Tracks “Boy In Blue” and “Bruises” occupy the two more disparate ends of Granny Music’s spectrum. The former is the hardest-rocking track on the album, an instant anthem—guitar-driven and arena ready, but dotted with twinkling synth-keys. The latter, a self-proclaimed power ballad, is the most instantly hopeful moment of the EP, an ode to healing despite our collective traumas. The release ends on the more somber note of “Mothers and Fathers,” a positively gritty number about the cycles of anger that fall unnoticed through the hands of divorce. “You don’t even recognize yourself,” Jansson sings atop a building, power pop melody. “When you meet someone, you turn into someone else.”

I’m not sure if Granny Music is a soundtrack for a generation, or a generational soundtrack; whether it defines the current moment or defies it. All I know is that Girl Scout’s approach is as precise and exacting as a snapshot––and they’re only just getting started.

You can read our February profile on Girl Scout here, where we deemed them the Best of What’s Next.