I Like K. Flay All of the Time: A Solutions Album Review

K. Flay released an album on July 12, 2019, and it’s fully of self-love and good vibes making it the ultimate summer album.  K. Flay has long been alternative’s angsty queen, her raspy, yearning voice seeming to plead to the audience on every song. Her most recent album release, Solutions, different. She’s honest as ever, willingly vulnerable calling to her past sounds on tracks like “Wishing it Was You” to her last album Every Where is Some Where. Flay fuses together the EDM and alt worlds seamlessly. She uses funky, heavily mixed piano chords and synth beats to magically create loose melodies. Verses and choruses are strung together with minimal consistency, following K. Flay’s natural sway, singing how and what she feels when she feels it. The 37 minute album begins with a self-love jam. “I Like Myself (Most of the Time)” is the alternative genre’s Hot Girl Summer anthem. In this opener, K. Flay criticizes social media culture singing, “I don’t think I’m too fat or too skinny for that matter/ I see photos of vacations and I know they’re faking laughter.” It’s an explicit call-out to the performative nature of these apps who promote subtle deception. Even in this critique, Flay is more honest than most, admitting that even those who are great at practicing self-love can falter, “I like myself/most of the time,” being open about falling to self criticism. She does it all without being too didactic, allowing the song to still be a fun sing-a-long bop. Another standout on the track is “Sister,” which starts out with K. Flay lovingly singing to an unknown person. She promises “even if you killed somebody, I wouldn’t tell nobody on you,” before moving into the chorus “I wanna be your sister/do you wanna be mine?” The refrain is unusual given that conventionally, siblings are bestowed upon us, not chosen. Yet in constructing her song this way, Flay displays that even in blood, familial bonds acting as one’s sister, ideally a loving and caring individual with whom she can withstand all conflict is an active, ongoing choice. Further, she nudges us to remember that some family is chosen.   “Ice Cream,” You are my ice cream/you make my brain freeze   “Not in California” is all about the snappy electric guitar.   Her music is timeless, ageless, applicable to an unlimited audience. Singing about self-actualization, falling in and out love, and growth, her themes can connect to individuals at any stage of life.   “Remember when the lights dim down, it’s only the dark”