If you’re like most fans, Remi Wolf’s debut album, Juno, has been playing on repeat nonstop the past few weeks. For those who are not familiar with the 25-year-old indie artist, Wolf encapsulates a Y2K glamor and Gen-Z infused aesthetic, but undoubtedly has the amalgamated sound of 90s and 80s influences. Wolf has crawled to her come up with EPs You’re a Dog, and I’m Allergic to Dogs!, but exploded on the scene with her 2020 single, “Monte Carlo.” Her titular history only continues, and it comes to no surprise that her debut album is named after none other than Juno, her French Bulldog. To those who have followed Wolf’s sound since her first release in 2019, Juno is imbued with as much chaos as ever. Juno’s LSD-ified sound takes its listeners on a technicolor kaleidoscope escape, yet touches on her innermost struggles with alcoholism during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Wolf weaves her alcoholism narrative thoughtfully, yet playfully, throughout her record. The first track off the album, “Liquor Store,” pens about her fears of abandonment, and subsequent reliance on alcohol, saying, “You can go if you want to/But you know my mind will be walking a tightrope.” Eventually, Wolf admits, in her brash style, that “I always want more walking into the liquor store.” This was Wolf’s watershed moment after having returned from months worth of rehab, catalyzing the further exploration of her substance abuse within the album. Above all else, Wolf is excruciatingly self-aware. In “Grumpy Old Man,” she further touches on her alcoholism, blaring, “I’m so defensive…I got whiskey in my shower,” or when she choruses, “I don’t want to be a Debbie Downer!” on “Quiet On Set,” after too much serious talk. These moments of blatant honesty are on-brand for Wolf’s writing style and philosophical keystones. The indie star’s ability to embed serious and deeply personal work within zany and shiny landscapes is what fans love so much about Wolf’s work. The star plays touch-and-go with this heavy theme matter as she balances alcoholism, abandonment, and family trauma with eccentric and funky interpolations. What we do know is this — Wolf, in her darkest pockets of the record, in all her glory, is the most vivid and sparkly, and we can’t help but love her for it.
Wolf’s hyper-colored dreamland interprets 2020 quarantine with “Anthony Kiedis,” the 3-minute pandemic anthem that essentially unfolds as background, dancing music in memory of our collective coronavirus experience. She easily summarizes Gen-Z’s dismay with, “everything’s shut down, and I don’t have feelings.” Wolf has a knack for tackling these depressing topics with high-energy melodies and harmonies that stop us from feeling too bad for ourselves. She lifts us up even more with track 3 — “wyd,” — a chant, a revelation for Gen-Z’s mental health epidemic. The hit feels like a “the kids will be alright” declaration, and doesn’t come a moment too soon. Even the outro quips, “I don’t need your validation/Cuz I got me and my medication.” Other songs on the album aren’t as on-the-nose with their subject matter, but nonetheless exemplify Wolf’s expertise on creating dizzying beats. “Guerilla”’s Queen-esque energy is like a digital mish-mash of brazen harmonies that encapsulates club culture, but she slaps you back to reality when she affirms, “yeah bitch!” The same can be said about the confusing “Buttermilk,” — an electrical, yet scary dance. Dancing through “Buttermilk,” we trip, twist, and fall into the pit of Wonderland itself; it is sonically a rhythmic handshake that doesn’t really make much sense.
Hearing a few of her songs you can tell Wolf is insanely talented at juxtaposing weird, funky music with her symbolic and impressive lyricism. We see it when she surfs the bouncy melody of track twelve’s, “Buzz Me In,” but she doesn’t let the music distract from her message as she indulges in a relationship that’s accumulated tears that taste “like wasted time.” Although she cries and knows that this relationship is a fickle thing, she doesn’t seem to care, and we don’t either. As the song’s airy energy lifts us up we all begin insisting too — “I’m at the gate, will you buzz me in?” “Front Tooth” is the album’s moment of mindfulness as Wolf lets “the water wake my body up!” While “Street You Live On” bookends the album; she hits the nail on the head of heartbreak while blaring, “I avoid the street that you live on.” The angst penetrates too deep with its nostalgic melody and vulnerable lyrics that point to her powerlessness drowning in the misery. It’s entirely relatable and really does speak to the youth; after all, we all can scream, “you’re a magnet pulling my feet and my head off” to that someone. Wolf balances quippy, cheeky lyrics, arbitrary pop-culture name droppings, or silly interpolations like dolphin whistles in “Front Tooth,” with symbolic revelations of being a “serial farmer,” that “harvests the drama.” There is much to say about the future of funk and pop’s love child, Remi Wolf, but for now, we can all enjoy what we hope to be the first of many idiosyncratic masterpieces. Juno is nothing short of a wild and hazy fever dream but is a trip we all can experience over and over again as we hit the replay button and drift into the fluorescence.