Stella Lefty's Debut Album "Long Way Home" is Boring and Lazy

I was naïve to think it would be a while before I’d find a true exception to the sentence, “It’s hard to become a successful nepo baby if you don’t have a lot of raw talent already”. Unfortunately, Stella Lefty is an exception.

Imagine editing an album the way you might edit a photo on your iPhone. You turn up the “surface level lyricism” level to the max, and you tone down the “mainstream country production” level halfway. Just enough that it could be Americana but sounds like it aspires to be country. What you get is Long Way Home by Stella Lefty, the daughter, who recently blew up for her song “Boston”, of billionaire, CEO and founder of multiple successful companies, Eric Lefkofsky.

My first impression of the album, looking at the cover, was that it would be a performative and shallow body of work. Lefty looks cute, but this photo could just as easily be part of an Instagram photo dump.

The Long Way Home album cover, photo by Jack Balaban

I was annoyed upon hearing the opening track, “Lean In, Kiss Me”. The entire song is a cliché. The hook is, “Would you lean in? Would you kiss me? Do you feel what I feel when you’re with me?” It’s boringly literal. “Whiskey”, which should be titled "Alright", is a bad follow-up. This guy makes her feel alright, apparently. She says it many times, and it evokes no emotion. It’s thanks to the “neon lights” and “the way you talk, I’m tongue-tied”. She didn’t think she’d ever feel “alright” about a boy at a bar, because that never happens to her. That’s not who she is.

Lefty overuses the sentiment of who she is and thus being “born this way”, first in “Something to Lose”. There are several things wrong with Lefty’s execution. First, she says she was born a “stubborn girl with a heart untamed”, which makes me think she is in fact the type of person who the situation in “Whiskey” would happen to. Second, “I wasn’t born this way” is the opening line of the following song, “Good at Leaving”. A debut album is meant to be an introduction to the artist, but this is a bit on-the-nose. Not to mention “Ain’t Something I Do”, in which she adds that it’s not like her to fall for someone so fast, thus it could be “the whiskey”, it could be “the song they were playing that night”, it could be… wait for it… “the way you said, ‘Hey, nice to meet you”. Still, “Something to Lose” features one of the only lyrics I like on this album, “I got good at being lonely till you showed me I was better with you/now I got something to lose”. This still isn’t incredibly creative, but it’s real.

Everything on this album is real, and that’s why it’s boring. Anyone could’ve written it. The hook of "Thinking 'bout You" is, “I don’t wanna complicate it… [just] can’t help thinking ‘bout you”. I mean, yeah. But care to go a little deeper?

She never does. “Missing You” has a lazy hook, “I’m already missing you, I’m already reminiscing about the things we used to do”. This is one of the easiest rhyme schemes in the book. “I Know I Know” is a generic song about drinking away your feelings, with the only standout lyric being, “Trying to tell myself that I’m not lonely”. “Slow Dancin’” is full of concepts from other songs: “Slow dancin’ with the lights down low” (this feels like a contrasting reference to John Mayer’s “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room”) and “You got me blushing when you talk so slow” (see Taylor Swift’s “Our Song”). “Forever Guy” would’ve been better with vocal stacks in the chorus, but once again, each lyric is a cliché. In “Feel Better”, she sings “When will I feel better?” way too many times, and in weird places. It doesn't flow. Lastly, on “Why Wouldn’t We”, she sings of the trope where it’s only been a week, but they already feel like they know each other. More annoyingly, “It’s feeling like damn, uh-huh, alright”. Once again, care to elaborate?

The single cover for "Boston" by Stella Lefty, photo by Jack Balaban

The only two songs that stand out to me positively are “Boston” and “Summer You Were Mine”. The former is somewhat creative lyrically and somewhat catchy. The latter is refreshingly figurative.

I would love to love this record. I don’t like disliking music. And by all means, if you have the resources from the get-go and want to be the exception to how the most talented songwriters’ work will never see the light of the day, go for it. Unfortunately, I have not observed any great songwriting from Lefty, so this situation doesn't fit. Regardless, I'd be happy to see her prove me wrong in the future.

You’ve heard my piece. Feel free to form opinions of your own – you can listen to Stella Lefty’s Long Way Home on all streaming platforms here.