Finn Wolfhard Embraces Imperfection in Debut Solo LP
Photo via Finn Wolfhard on Instagram.
It’s been a busy decade for 22-year-old Finn Wolfhard. While best known for his leading role as Mike in Netflix’s Stranger Things, the actor has also fronted two bands, leading fans to believe it was only a matter of time before he dropped a solo project. Though he was only 15-years-old when he formed the first band, Calpurnia, the release of his debut solo LP is proof that Wolfhard knew what he wanted from the get go. Happy Birthday is a nine-track tapestry that interweaves sounds from bands of old with stories from the deepest parts of his matured self, creating an album that feels like a brutally honest scrapbook.
As if beginning to chronicle a new era, the record opens with title track “Happy Birthday,” a short yet unsettling introduction to the album. “Happy Birthday, what do you want,” Wolfhard drawls, wasting no time on pleasantries before continuing with, “It’s your birthday, stop wasting precious time.” This lyrical sense of urgency juxtaposes the slow annunciation of Wolfhard’s words, while the one-chord drone that stretches across the whole track is unnervingly reminiscent of the sound of a heart monitor flat-lining. It’s as if the song symbolizes the acceptance of wasting one’s “precious time,” which lays an apt foundation for the cognitively dissonant themes of the album.
Watch the music video for “Choose the latter” on YouTube.
Wolfhard himself provides an example of this with track two and lead single “Choose the latter,” a song describing choice paralysis. “If there was a choice to be scraping by on my own time / I’d be stranded on isles / Been walking for miles,” he sings in the first verse, picking up where “Happy Birthday” left off in regards to the notion of knowingly wasting time. “Choose the latter” also exemplifies Wolfhard’s early 2000s indie rock-inspired sound and rough-around-the-edges voice. With the album’s aesthetically unpolished production and abundance of guitars, Wolfhard’s music would not sound out of place if it were released three decades ago during the heyday of artists like Mazzy Star and The Cranberries.
At one extreme of the nostalgic sonic spectrum are noisy rockers like “Eat” and “Crown.” The former is an under-two-minute perpetual wall of sound, with Wolfhard’s voice getting slightly lost under the volume of the band. The robust, cymbal-heavy drum beat and in-your-face layered electric guitars in “Eat” give the track a Green Day-esque je ne sais quoi. “Crown” is more of a tension-builder, its two grungy guitar lines countering each other to add to the angst at the heart of the song. As the instrumentation gets denser and the order devolves, the lyrics spiral as Wolfhard sings, “He breaks up / Yes, he’s breaking down / He’s having thoughts / He can’t get out why,” before vehemently repeating, “Can I still have a crown,” until the song’s end.
Wolfhard’s songwriting is just as intriguing at the other end of the sonic spectrum, where a more stripped back production accompanies his lilt in tracks like “Everytown there’s a darling” and “You.” His abstract yet picturesque lyricism shines in “Everytown there’s a darling,” where lyrics like “Met her in a stable / She trots like an angel / We sleep in the ocean / My reign never corroded” may not have a cut and dry meaning, but certainly provide beautiful imagery that gets listeners’ gears turning. In both “Everytown there’s a darling” and “You,” Wolfhard sings with a higher, almost feminine tone that perhaps parallels the tracks’ gentler airs.
The remaining singles, “Objection!” and “Trailers after dark,” provide satisfying middle grounds both sonically and thematically. The laid-back rock feel of “Objection!” sets a sort of nostalgic tone, pairing with the fact that its music video is dedicated to Wolfhard’s grandfather, a former geologist who passed away shortly after filming it. Wolfhard said “Trailers after dark” harkens to memories from his childhood of watching movie trailers on television on rainy days. The cozy rawness of the track feels like a hug that could only come from, say, an old stuffed animal.
On his official website, Wolfhard wrote that he wanted the record to feel “authentic—raw and unpolished.” There’s no track that better encapsulates that essence than the closer, “Wait.” Its hollow production, slightly out of tune guitar strums and out-of-sync layered vocal lines invite listeners into the living room it was recorded in, the hiss of a tea kettle adding that homey touch. It also seems fitting that Wolfhard leaves fans with one last existential lyric to end the album: “Just watch me fall into the deep / And the great beyond tied around my feet.” Traveling to the “great beyond,” indeed, is what listening to Happy Birthday top to bottom feels like. In just 25 minutes, Wolfhard transports listeners to years, eras and decades past while still unabashedly honoring his place in the imperfect present moment.