Anna Sofia's discography is an important one to analyze to understand what it means to be young in this day and age.
Her first ever EP Self Aware B**ch tackled concepts like high school, drama, gossip, parties and crushes by asking introspective questions. Finding the balance between relatability and intimacy, Sofia has managed to portray emotions known to everyone in their teenage years through her music all the while keeping her witty edge. In her latest work Cruel World, her edge is more prominent than ever, showing the more honest side of teenage haze where you question everything that has been imposed onto you.
"Don’t you just want it all / So you take it all / Tired of feeling small / But there’s nothin’ that’ll save you when you fall / Nobody to call / Cuz it’s a cruel cruel world when there ain’t any love" she sings. This line alone, sums up the weird transition period between teenagehood to adulthood perfectly. It's impossible not to get cynical when you realize that the world not might be as promising of a place to provide happiness or love, in Cruel World's case.
"And everybody’s bound to leave me / If I don’t look good for TV" she previously sang on No.5. The surface level relationships and the two-sided façades has driven Anna to her final form in Cruel World; fed-up and mental. The screechy guitar lines and sturdy drums does an excellent job of depicting the angst that Sofia portrays through her lyrics. She is loud as ever, almost shouting out into the void, not to make a statement necessarily but to understand the hypocrisy that comes with power and greed. The music video portrays the restrictive mental state that comes with having these revelations in a claustrophobic and suffocating fashion. You might interpret this body of work as a cautionary tale or a brutally honest representation of the darker side of being a teenager in this day and age where everything seems to revolve around pseudo-niceness and where being genuine seems to be an ancient concept.
Watch the music video here: