I'll be the first to admit it, I had no idea who Taylor Acorn was until shortly before she played in Lawrence with The Home Team, With Confidence, and Real Friends. Trying to see if she was someone I wanted to catch, or if I could show up late if needed, I turned to my handy YouTube Music subscription, and checked her out.
So, why am I writing about her almost two weeks after the concert? As I was headed to work, her song Psycho popped into my head, and my vibes were set straight for the rest of the day, and my students and I listened to a SACRELIGIOUS amount of Taylor Acorn today. If you haven't heard Psycho, you can check it out here:
This song is just catchy amirite? But there is something else I love about her voice. As she is continuing to expand her own library of published original pop-punk/emo songs, she does have an epic track list of covers. There is one song she covers which highlights something I really love about her voice.
As a lifelong midwesterner, I'm no stranger to country music even if it's not my favorite. If you listen to her cover of Mayday Parade's "Jamie All Over" (which was PHENOEINAL live) you can notice a certain melodic sweetness which is common with female singers throughout modern country music. What blows me away is that this former "Country Artist to Watch" has decided to return to her roots of loving emo, even if her country music is pretty good (give Red White a listen). You can tell by the energy and passion she brings to not only her new singles like Psycho, Wish You Hell, or In My Head; but her covers as well that the return to this genre has a liberatory effect.
Needless to say, I'm a newly declared Taylor stan, and I think this Taylor has the ability to do some amazing genre-bending things which could make her surpass another Taylor you may be familiar with. If she's ready to push everyone to #StayEmo then I'll be there for every step of the journey and hope she makes it back to #LFK sometime soon. If she was able to hype up the crowd for an amazing night of pop-punk that ended in Real Friends burning the house down, I cannot wait to see what she does when she's headlining her own tour!
Give her newest single "Wish You Hell" a listen before you leave!