The world may have gotten their first taste of Lolo when she lent her pipes to Panic! At The Disco’s explosive track, “Miss Jackson,” but it wasn’t her first rodeo. The singer/songwriter made a name for herself playing a part in the Broadway hit, Spring Awakening, and she even released an album under her real name, Lauren Pritchard. But since taking the moniker of Lolo, she’s finally found her place in music that suits her with perfection, and it’s all beautifully embedded throughout her new record, In Loving Memory Of When I Gave A Shit.
Aside from being the greatest album title of all time, In Loving Memory is a far cry from what she offered on “Miss Jackson,” but the most important part is that the voice is still just as great. Lolo’s voice proves that, whether on a Panic! song or a Matt Nathanson song (“Headphones,” for those wondering), she nails basically any genre that she attempts, and she attempts and succeeds at a good few on the record.
Lolo takes a theatrical approach on a number of songs, and it works well – probably due to her history from the stage. Tracks like “Heard It From A Friend” is film noir-esque about an angry lover, while “The Courtyard” is bound to battle Adele for the top of the Adult Contemporary charts. In Loving Memory, while for the most part is soulful pop, nearly shapeshifts into something entirely different mid-way through, as suddenly you’re entering a time-machine heading back to the 1950’s. With “I Don’t Wanna Have To Lie” and “No Time For Lonely,” Lolo gives off her best doo-wop impressions, and subsequently crushes everything Meghan Trainor tried her best to accomplish.
That’s the most appealing part of this album at the end of the day – the fact that Lolo channels all of these different artists, like Amy Winehouse, to Sia, to Adele, and to even Sara Bareilles, but she finds a way to have every track intertwine together with her own identity. Lolo is essentially putting on a one-woman show with all of these different roles in In Loving Memory, and by the time the record is through, you’re more than ready for an encore.
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