Girlpool portrays the teenage years in their raw, new album

Teenage girls everywhere are mocked and stomped on for being emotional and over-dramatic. They are turned into stereotypes and expected to not care about anything but boys, nail polish, bubblegum pink, and magazines. However, time and time again, teenage girls prove that they are more than just cliches and instead create art that no one else can emulate.

Musicians, Cleo Tucker, 18, and Harmony Tividad, 19, are under the age of 20, yet have been signed to Wichita Recordings and are currently touring around the UK. While most people in this age group are trying to get through college and ignore the ever increasing amount of student loans, Cleo and Harmony are creating music and just released their debut album on June 2. They posted their first EP on bandcamp only last year and already they are playing at FYF Festival and posing in magazines such as i-D and Beat. Their newest creation titled “Before The World Was Big”, transports you into the mind of a teenage girl.

This album is raw from start to finish. The focus of each song is not on the instrumentals but the lyrics. Each song is a glimpse into the mind of these two talented women, and focuses on their feelings without suppressing anything. The songs range in topic from nostalgia for the way things used to be, “7:45 in the morning, I’’m leaving my house. Trying not to think of all the ways, this place has changed” (“Before The World Was Big”) to feeling alienated from the world, “Cut my hair when I feel like I don’t have a place.” (“Chinatown”).  As a seventeen year old girl, I find myself envisioning times when I thought similar thoughts or experienced similar situations to what was brought up in the lyrics.

People forget that yes, teenage girls are emotional and angsty but they are also still naive to the world and open about their feelings and who they are. The teenage years are a master piece in themselves and teenagers create art that reflects how they feel without putting censors on the material they release to the world. Girlpool and many other rising girl bands are teaching teenage girls to take a stand and challenge the roles that they are expected to embody. In a world where girls are told to occupy as little space as possible, albums like “Before The World Was Big”, are an encouragement to girls everywhere to redefine the stereotypes society has created for them.