‘Forever Neverland’ is Honest in its Confusion

By Courtesy of MØ / Columbia Records

Everyone visits Neverland sometimes. The idyllic landscape of childhood resides in the most obscure folds of our memories, but when we find it, bittersweet nostalgia can come back to comfort as well as to haunt. Four years after her debut album, “No Mythologies to Follow,” Karen Marie Aagaard Ørsted Andersen, better known as MØ, has graced us with “Forever Neverland,” in which she continues to explore the struggle of reconciling the past with a world that moves too quickly into the future.

The album is a walk down memory lane with no direction, a tale of turmoil between growing older and growing up. It reflects the chaos of life with a collection of songs just as messy and amazing. In the end, there's not much to learn but everything to experience.

Each song contributes a part to a deep narrative, starring MØ or a fictional protagonist and delving into both their past and how they reflect on it. Beginning in young adulthood, each song exemplifies confusion. The frantic pessimism of “Way Out” and reluctant feelings in “I Want You” ultimately culminate in “Blur.” Melancholic instrumentals set the backdrop to dispiriting lyrics, and a shrill synth melody post-chorus adds a sense of frustration to the otherwise somber mood. With lyrics like “Let me out. I’m trapped in a blur” and “I’m lost in the words,” the song accurately conveys the dull panic of a directionless adolescence, all while maintaining a danceable tune.

From a foundation of confused soul-searching, the album moves on to critique nostalgia as a means of analyzing the past. “Sun in Our Eyes” is a gem. With a peppier beat, MØ’s classic vocals, and a swanky piano riff, the song pays homage to the old MØ. It's catchy — the kind of music people were expecting. And yet, that familiarity stems from the notion that the song is meant to be a flashback to a false memory. Following with the idea that each song adds onto a story, the song's reminiscing hardly paints an accurate picture. The last few years were a blur, something to escape from. Indeed, as the lyrics admit, “Romance makes you blind / I’ll be blinded for a lifetime,” and so explains the uncharacteristic positivity. A song so skillfully put together to bring sunshine on the cloudiest of days hints at a facade of kitsch that calls into question how genuine our memories can be. Though she may fear change, her past was as undefined as her future is uncertain.

Indeed, beyond the drug of nostalgia, the album explores vices that can cloud the truth. The titular drink in “Red Wine” acts as a motif throughout the album, the drink being used in the intro and final song as a means of convincing the protagonist she’s happy with what her life has become. "Imaginary Friend" then touches upon the superficiality of party culture with a simple, repetitive melody to characterize the drone of emotional monotony, further driven in by the almost detached manner in which MØ delivers the chorus. She has essentially overcome the pain of heartbreak by ignoring it with a hookup, and in doing so, she has ignored her real self. All that remains is then imaginary.

Past and present collide in "Purple Like the Summer Rain." An ambient tone eventually reaches the bridge, where MØ wraps up the ballad of the album with a straightforward talk. The spoken words carry authenticity. They aren’t delivered to complement any instrumentals, nor do they follow any pattern or semblance of reason (she roars at one point), but they convey a feeling of defeat, like a silent admission that her jumbled thoughts still haven’t made sense of anything. The ending is just as confused as the beginning: “Where the skies are blue, let me float.” After telling a story so rich, the album ends on a note intangible and ungrounded.

On the surface, the album sounds like an electronic ode to growing up, but a closer listening reveals that the protagonist hasn’t grown up at all. Instead, a flurry of conflicting emotions, the rose-colored lenses of nostalgia, and mind-numbing red wine has left the confusion repressed and packed into lyrical poetry that must yield to flashy beats and an upbeat rhythm. Some tracks sing triumphs and others melodically admit defeat, but the one aspect that never changes is a lack of conclusion.

“Forever Neverland” defies the tropes of story arcs in which some revelation grants closure to the narrative. “Forever Neverland” refuses to end on “happily ever after,” instead serving as a more realistic picture of young adulthood. Growing older doesn’t mean growing up, and growing up doesn’t mean getting answers. In the meantime, we can all kick back and listen to the music, because the mess sounds beautiful.