{"id":123115,"date":"2025-10-15T07:12:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T07:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/123115\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T07:12:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T07:12:11","slug":"madison-cunningham-ace-album-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/123115\/","title":{"rendered":"Madison Cunningham: Ace Album Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cunningham is a classic \u201cmusician\u2019s musician,\u201d her songs dense with time signature hops and jazzy voicings. Even the earthy acoustic song \u201cWake\u201d comes with an uneasy melody, with Fleet Foxes\u2019 Robin Pecknold\u2019s offering dissonant harmonies that sound like a worn-out Simon & Garfunkel vinyl wavering in pitch. And there\u2019s a lot of grief and animosity simmering underneath even Ace\u2019s quieter songs.On \u201cSkeletree,\u201d Cunningham teases, \u201cSomething\u2019s got to give\u201d over a dense groove, until she finally shouts, \u201cI don\u2019t trust what you say\/But I\u2019ve come to lose my faith in everyone\u201d as the trembling strings and electric guitars finally break through.<\/p>\n

The album\u2019s central theme is one of untangling yourself from someone else, particularly after anger and betrayal. Cunningham doesn\u2019t go into specifics, but her lyrics are loaded anyway. On \u201cMy Full Name,\u201d she sings, \u201cYour brother only shares your family shame\/But he doesn\u2019t really know you\u201d; on \u201cMummy,\u201d she sings, \u201cI\u2019m the oldest of five\/The first to be torn\/In your mother\u2019s eyes\/You were the firstborn\u201d\u2014a line with enough baggage to outfit an entirely different song. \u201cMummy\u201d sounds like a whimsical lullaby, or one of Regina Spektor<\/a>\u2019s artsier moments, but it contains some of Cunningham\u2019s most incisive lyrics. First she blames herself\u2014\u201cI never could explain myself, the hurt that I feel, the hurt that I cause\u201d\u2014then she turns the same words against an ex. The truth of what actually happened feels deliberately out of reach, much like a partner can \u201cknow every mole and skin tag\u201d (\u201cTake Two\u201d) and still not actually understand their lover.<\/p>\n

Ace is the work of a mature, controlled songwriter. The album largely avoids the clich\u00e9s of the divorce postmortem, earning its more plainspoken lines like, \u201cSome days I hate you so much\/I want you back.\u201d Even when the music is more conventional, Cunningham fits in a cutting line\u2014as on the very \u201970s soft-rock \u201cBeyond that Moon,\u201d where she sings, \u201cI’d stay under your skin if I were convinced that there were room.\u201d Only lead single \u201cMy Full Name\u201d\u00a0 keeps things a little too simple, lacking the complex sentiments and intricate arrangements that make this album special. Ace rewards close listening; from a stately chamber-folk album, something quietly unrelenting emerges.<\/p>\n

All products featured on Pitchfork are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.<\/p>\n

\"Madison<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cunningham is a classic \u201cmusician\u2019s musician,\u201d her songs dense with time signature hops and jazzy voicings. Even the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":123116,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[264],"tags":[12327,18,117,19,17,337,806],"class_list":{"0":"post-123115","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-albums","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-music","14":"tag-web"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}