On the Spectacular COPINGMECHANISM, WILLOW Saves Herself
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WILLOW never intended to write a record about heartbreak, but who ever does?
It was just a year ago that WILLOW unleashed her album Lately I Feel Everything, a love letter to pop-punk. It featured the angsty, melodic breakout hit “t r a n s p a r e n t s o u l” featuring Travis Barker, as well as “Grow,” her collaboration with Avril Lavigne – not to mention “emo girl” with Machine Gun Kelly.
WILLOW’s pop-punk influences and her love for emo music were clear on that record, which itself was a sonic leap for the musician, who already has a diverse aural catalog to her name — she’s come a long way from her debut single “Whip My Hair,” and her pivot to guitar music following her foray into R&B was exciting and daring.
It’s all perfectly paved the way for her latest studio-length effort, <COPINGMECHANISM> (out Friday, October 7th), which sees her push even further into her fondness of guitar music. This time, however, she sheds her skin once again, leaving her pop-punk inflections behind to embrace an even heavier guitar-based sound that leans into metal territory. <COPINGMECHANISM> is an album that has WILLOW well and truly becoming a bonafide rockstar, refusing to be boxed into one singular genre — while seeing how far each one can take her.
<COPINGMECHANISM> is WILLOW’s most personal — and, as may coincidence may have it, hardest — record to date. At its core, it is a hypersensitive and emotionally feral record about the spectrum of pain experienced in the aftermath of a breakup, with WILLOW dabbling with the push and pull of both her anger and hurt — and how she has to reckon with both in order to get closer to healing.
As she fully embraces hard rock and heavy metal, a catharsis pulses through the record. She yowls the angriest when delivering some of her most vulnerable lyrics. “I don’t wanna keep being alone, isolation got me going psycho/ I just stop need to stop questioning my life,” she screeches on “WHY?” just before a swirl of abrasive guitars. “The least you could do is find someone else,” she snarls above menacing, heavy riffs in the kiss-off anthem “ur a <stranger>.”
Beyond the Boys’ Club: Willow Smith
On “curious/furious,” she plays with the volatility of her own sensitive nature while acknowledging the violence of her emotions: “Shielding myself from the depths of my heart/ The surface is calm, inside, the chaos restarts.”
WILLOW has name-dropped the likes of Deftones and Lamb of God as inspirations on her latest effort, and their influences are heard. She even cites Radiohead as a point of reference, keen to not pigeon-hole herself into the pop-punk she crafted with her previous release. But it’d be remiss not to mention the legacy of her mother, Jada Pinkett-Smith, who fronted the nu-metal band Wicked Wisdom (and landed a support slot on Britney Spears’ “Onyx Hotel Tour” in 2004).
With Wicked Wisdom, Pinkett-Smith was a refreshing presence within the hard rock scene as a black female lead vocalist in a genre that was, and still is, overwhelmingly male-dominated and white. It’s hard to imagine the influence of WILLOW’s mother, both sonically and culturally, in her own work (she even reunited the band in 2021 and performed a rendition of “Bleed All Over Me,” with a beaming Pinkett-Smith watching from the crowd).
“There were a lot of racist and sexist people that she had to deal with who were very vocal about the fact that they were racist and sexist,” WILLOW told Billboard earlier this year. “I got to see people get very rowdy and say some things that you should never hear somebody say to your own mother.”
Self-awareness is evident throughout <COPINGMECHANISM>. The album involves expert-level introspection, brimming with the kind of torturous thought processes that are inevitable when dealing with deep heartbreak. There’s the visceral hurt and the violent anger; the ache of the sadness; the inability to even acknowledge the possibility of your own wrongdoing; the intense blaming of your former partner; and then, at long last, acceptance and accountability.
This deep self-scrutiny is most evident on lead single “<maybe> it’s my fault,” in which WILLOW recounts the dissolution of her breakup, right from being smitten with her ex-lover at a party to the devastation of having to pick up the pieces. The song is a literal journey in itself; “I don’t know how I can forgive you,” she screeches in the first pre-chorus. This same verse, later in the song, finally evolves into: “I don’t know if I’m worth forgiving.” It’s what they call growth.
On the title track, WILLOW grapples with what perhaps is the saddest part of the dissolution of a relationship: the feeling of shame around fighting so hard to save something broken when it was always doomed. “I’ve wasted so much time for hating myself for trying, accepting that this fate is our demise,” she howls.
But she doesn’t allow herself to become a nihilist about her heartbreak. In fighting her own demons, she uses the opportunity to grow, change, and reflect for the better. On “curious/furious,” she states what is hopefully the lasting emotion of her album: “Getting over it now and I never wear a frown/ Because life doesn’t choose eithеr side/ Win or lose, right or wrong/ It’s a battle that’s all in your mind.”
Because with <COPINGMECHANISM>, WILLOW knows that you can’t really have anyone else come and save you. You’ve got to save yourself.
Essential Tracks: “ur a <stranger>,” “<maybe> it’s my fault,” “hover like a GODDESS”
<COPINGMECHANISM> Artwork:
On the Spectacular COPINGMECHANISM, WILLOW Saves Herself
Cady Siregar
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