My knee bounced up and down anxiously as I watched the 2024 Grammy Awards Ceremony live stream, an event held before the mainstream awards to present additional honors that couldn’t be fitted into the prominent show on CBS. I was watching to see Laufey, one of my favorite musical artists. She was nominated for the first time in the category of Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album for her sophomore album, Bewitched. I continued to watch in anticipation as the category was announced, then stood up shrieking with joy as the announcer said her name as the winner.
As a jazz artist, Laufey has paved her way into the music industry incredibly among the dominant genres of pop and rap by incorporating youthful aspects into her music and introducing the younger generations to the wonders of jazz. By enchanting audiences with her whimsical performances and delightful humor, Laufey has established a permanent spot for herself in the musical world.
Her fame only increased with the release of Bewitched: The Goddess Edition on April 26, the deluxe version of her Grammy-winning album. In this new version, Laufey added four unheard songs to the tracklist: Bored, Trouble, It Could Happen to You, and Goddess.
With her new release, she also subsequently announced The Goddess Tour, with select dates touring around the world almost directly after the Bewitched Tour. Of course, having attended the Bewitched Tour in Oct. 2023, I had to secure tickets to see her again at the Chicago Theater last month. Just as I was expecting, it was one of the best nights of my life, perfectly on par with my experience last October. She played three of the four new songs on The Goddess Edition with simple elegance and magnificence, beginning with Goddess.
Since the announcement of Bewitched: The Goddess Edition, Laufey has said multiple times that the title track, Goddess, is her most honest song yet, and I would have to agree. The melody begins with a resounding piano chord, followed by Laufey soulfully singing the truth behind one of her previous detrimental relationships. The hymn follows the story that someone loved Laufey for her image as a famous artist rather than a genuine person. She mournfully sings in the main chorus, “Were you surprised by me / When you took me home? / When the glamour wore off / Reduced to skin and bone.” This also directly correlates to another lyric in the second verse, “You took a star to bed / Woke up with me instead.” This contributes to the notion that celebrities are seen in a fantasized light that is dimmed in reality, an idea also expressed in the film Notting Hill.
My favorite part of Goddess is the outro. The slow, calm piano begins to speed up exponentially as the background vocals harmonize, and then suddenly, a resounding crescendo in the production appears right as she begins the bridge: “You took me for a fool / You stole my youth / You wanted this so much / You watched me rise / And killed my light / And now you know / I’m not your goddess.” At the end of this verse, Laufey belts out the lyrics in a way I’ve never heard from her before, finally putting her incredible vocals on full display, which sounded heavenly at a live concert. This song only solidified what I already knew: Laufey possesses an innate ability for songwriting and is set to be an even greater artist than she already is.
After the powerful vocals from Goddess on the piano, Laufey took on a lighter, jazzy approach to her next song, Bored. She released snippets of the song on her social media to excite her fans before the initial release, singing along to the cheeky chorus. I adore the carefree and joyful tone she adopts in Bored. In the chorus, she sings, “And maybe you’re just way too vain to be interesting / Baby, keep talking but nobody’s listening / Don’t mean to walk out the door / But baby, I’m bored.” She is serenading about a self-absorbed love she once had, which turned up so boring she couldn’t stand it any longer. This, of course, is a more current pop culture topic than in classic jazz standards. With classic Laufey style, she weaves ethereal harmonizing and chill instrumentation into the lyrics, making for a heavenly listening experience.
In the final two deluxe songs, Trouble and It Could Happen to You, Laufey returns completely to her jazzy background, scatting throughout the songs and adding saxophone, a classic jazz instrument. In my opinion, these songs sound perfect for an appearance at a Paris jazz club or in the fabulous film La La Land. Trouble is the epitome of a Laufey classic, with a reverberant voice and clever lyrics. However, It Could Happen to You is a cover Laufey performed of a classic jazz standard of the same name, originally written by Jimmy Van Heusen in 1943 for Dorothy Lamour to sing in the 1944 film And the Angels Sing. Ever since her debut album (Everything I Know About Love), Laufey has covered a jazz standard on each release as a tribute to her heroes. She put her own twist on It Could Happen to You, adding more of a cheerful and sanguine beat instead of the soulful, slow original.
Overall, I have yet to be disappointed by any of Laufey’s releases. I first began listening to her music in Feb. 2023—before she became wildly popular with the release of From The Start—and I am so proud to see how far she has come as a musical artist since then. Laufey excels in cheeky and sometimes saddening lyrics and vocals, as well as her prominence in jazz music and on stage. I honestly cannot wait to listen to all of her new releases in the future. Bewitched: The Goddess Edition is truly a classic favorite I will gladly listen to on repeat.
