Pouty Confronts the Horrors of Growing Older on Forgot About Me
California singer-songwriter Rachel Gagliardi’s debut LP couches her internal fears into blistering pop-rock.

Aging isn’t a humanitarian crisis but, at some point in our lives, it tends to become one. Maybe you’ve noticed a gray hair or two hiding in your scalp, or you find yourself turning into bed earlier than you used to. Our corporate world provides many fixes: $80 skincare, cosmetic surgery, even brain implants. But sometimes, the best solution is to just play through the pain. And Rachel Gagliardi—who records as pop-rock artist Pouty—plays. Through and beyond college, she was in the DIY punk duo Slutever with Nicole Synder; their last project was 2015’s Almost Famous, which was riotous and searing punk rock. Gagliardi’s first EP as Pouty, 2016’s Take Me to Honey Island, was similarly gritty with a poppier edge. Her 2021 single “Bambina,” written after her daughter Madonna was born, provided a hint for newer music to come—it was softer pop rock that had lost none of its bite: “Time is a bitch and so am I,” she sang smugly in its opening verse.
On Pouty’s debut full-length, Forgot About Me, Gagliardi surrounds her maturing soul with blazing power pop. With a bright, pointed voice and crunchy backing band—which was made in part with musicians and friends from the Philly DIY scene (the album was produced by Evan Bernard and Chris Baglivo of Philly alt-rock band The Superweaks)—Pouty’s music can be both sickeningly sweet and spitefully scorching. On album opener “Salty,” she taunts an unknown assailant who could very well be her current self: “I bet you almost forgot about me,” she sings, her voice diving into a stormy chorus and raging with acceptance. “I’m not embarrassed I can even accept it / The better part of it,” she continues, as if to underscore a newfound authority.