Aly & AJ are not back. They've been here the whole time.
Instead of talking about 2020 reflections or 2021 resolutions this week, I am going to spend the next few hundred words convincing everybody to open their hearts and become the Aly & AJ stans that I know you all can be.
With the release of an explicit edition of "Potential Breakup Song" and a new single, "Slow Dancing", the spiritual cousin to Taylor Swift’s "Cowboy Like Me", it would appear that the 00s sister band is gearing up to make a huge comeback in 2021. The truth is, the sisters have quietly released bops for three years, and I have loyally followed their ascent back to the top of the charts. Aly & AJ have announced plans to release their first studio album in 14 years (We Don’t Stop released this year is a collection of their EP and singles from 2017-2020), so the future looks bright!
Now, let's get in the mood.
Instead of trying to explain why you should listen to Aly & AJ like some bleary-eyed Rolling Stones contributor, I will present six of the best new(ish) singles and tailor very specific situations for listening to them to give you a cinematic understanding of their brilliance. I suggest reading the scenes then closing your eyes and listening to the songs. It will all make sense.
Take Me
This song is lyrically about love—and maybe vampires?—but this is not one to sing to a lover. It is to be shouted at the top of your lungs with friends. You are in a championship match for soccer, or basketball, softball, whatever; and your team, a ragtag group of outsiders, has somehow, miraculously, made it this far. You face off against the biggest, baddest team in the league. They are large. German heritage, from the look of it—Blonde, beautiful, skilled. The next few scenes move quickly. The crowd is gripping the edge of their seats, and at the darkest moment, all hope lost, the smallest member of the team kicks, throws, hits, the ball through the net, to the outfield. The cheering starts, the beautiful, muscular team lands on their knees in astonishment. As the dawning of victory edges into your vision that is when “Take Me” starts. The scene becomes a Bollywood ending. Everybody breaking out in dance. Jumping on already jello legs. Confetti falls from somewhere. You embrace your teammates, no, friends, NO, sisters. The coach who stands on the sidelines has completed his probation obligations, or whatever led him to coach a girls’ team, and his heart melts at the shining, glorious moment. You've changed him. You've changed yourselves. Go ahead, shout it until your lungs hurt! Where's he gonna take you out? Cici's Pizza.
Church
This one might be a little too on the nose because you are Fleabag from Fleabag, and you are in love with the hot priest. Moments prior, he told you to kneel in a confessional booth, but it does not feel religious in remembrance. You are walking home, alone, and replaying every word and look. Faith and skepticism—you are well aware of the duality in spirituality and in love. You want things you can’t have. Broken, and well aware of it, but you are very good at covering hurt with selfishness, guilt with humor. The priest is not the answer to your moral conundrums, but he is also not a distraction. With that impossibility, you find something wilder than romantic love—self-love.
Extra Credit:
Not Ready to Wake Up
You've been dating this guy for a few months. He's very attractive and courteous, but there has always been something a little off. He is vague about his past and wears freshly cut shirts that do not blend with the small town that you both reside in. You work at a popular diner near a college campus and babysit Jager-full students while still harboring a dream to make some kind of mark on the world. One day, your boyfriend does not show up for a scheduled date after a shift at the diner. You are annoyed but not too concerned because he is an emergency pediatrician and often on call. While stumbling back to your two story walk up—a brownstone beauty with drafty windows but impressive, arched doorways—you find said boyfriend at the front steps. He is frantic. His collar is crumpled. He looks like he hasn't slept in days. In so many words, he explains that he is the heir to a small nation that you have never heard of. His father has died, and he must assume his duties. He cannot possibly think of returning without you. “Not Ready to Wake Up” is the frantic three minutes and seventeen seconds you take in the bedroom while your prince waits on the couch for your answer after you just verbally assaulted him for lying this whole time. He is, in fact, a doctor and studied in the states, but he conveniently left out his royal lineage. The anger has cooled. You really do love him, and there is a beautiful life opening up as the possibilities expand. No more college students or greasy late nights. No more wannabe cowboys. You accept his proposal and wonder if it is all a dream.
Attack of Panic
You are part of an underground organization that is hired by the state to steal back missile codes or diamonds—the MacGuffin for the plot. You are the computer specialist, the smart ass with a top-of-the-charts IQ, a wunderkind with some quirk like sucking on lollipops or an affinity for very large headphones. The rest of the team is front facing and executing the physical labor for the job, but you are the brain of the operation. You’re always typing at a keyboard in a darken room, and the team leader with the mega-watt smile is always yelling in his earpiece while you clean up their messes. But this is the third act, and things are not going well for the team. The job has been compromised, and the team is picked off one by one. You probably yell something like, “Get the hell out of there,” right before realizing that you are in trouble, as well. The dark workroom is actually a rented office space next to a nightclub, and a bunch of suit-wearing goons bust down the door just as you escape through a hatch that connects to the club’s kitchen. “Attack of Panic” plays while you are racing through the stainless steel aisles. The goons push aside the cooks and bottle service girls as they narrow in, but you slip into the dark expanse of the dance floor. You take off your bright coat and steal a hat from a dancer. The goons look over the tops of heads and hands, but you have surprising skill at evasion. It is important to get to a secure location, and reconnect with the other members that were able to get away. There is still a day to save.
Good Love
This one is a universal banger, and it is the hit from your musical. This is right after you have met the romantic lead, but you are still too much in your head, incapable of committing to the relationship because you know that your family would not approve. He is from the wrong side of the tracks. You have a scholarship on the line. You’ve just locked eyes at a county fair, but instead of walking towards those possibilities, you walk away. The sidewalks are packed full of workers heading home and families walking against the flow to the brightening fair lights. The synth kicks in—watered eyes upturned to the moon—you begin to sing. When the chorus picks up with, “So I keep waiting to touch somebody,” the pedestrians on the street begin to sway along to the rhythm, and the scene transforms into a magical set. Men in yellow hard hats swing their lunch boxes over their heads. Couples box step in the streets. You are alone, but you are thinking about him. Everybody is thinking about someone in that moment. What you are singing about is universal. The second chorus ends, the bridge starts, and you are walking through the abandoned worksite. You balance on the beams and sing your heart out while the full dance ensemble shines, reflected in the rain slick street. That boy could be bad or good. I guess we’ll have to see how the story plays out.
Slow Dancing
The past was never good to you, so it is best kept at the bottom of your rucksack. You take a position as a ranch hand, thousands of miles from home, and immediately notice the wrangler who is always walking the borders of shadows. A deep respect forms between the two of you until one night his nefarious connections with a local drug dealer forces you both on the road to deliver a package or face deadly consequences. Naturally, you are not happy about this. You've spent the last few years as a drifter, avoiding entanglements, and now this near stranger has pulled you into dangerous waters. The trip is tense. You sit, silent, in the passenger seat of his Ford Bronco, and make your discontent known. On the last leg of the trip, somewhere past ---, a flat tire follows a rainstorm, and you both are forced to walk two miles to a one motel town. Call it fate, the town is in the middle of its yearly music festival. There will be no mechanic until morning and no vacancy, so you both head to the music hall to loosen some of the earlier venom and awkwardness; there is nothing that can be done until morning. It might be the beer, maybe the music and the people, but an easiness settles between you both that has not been felt since the whole messy endeavor. “Slow Dancing” starts from the stage, cheers of recognition from the crowd, and your reluctant partner looks at you in that way that all contrite men do. You take his hand and forgive him on the dance floor. Tomorrow could always be the last anyways.
Let me know if you guys like this style of review. I could easily do it for multiple artists at the drop of a hat.
xoxo