Up-and-coming singer, Knox, released his debut EP, “How To Lose a Girl in 7 Songs,” on February 17, 2023… and it (literally) rocks.
The seven songs on the EP don’t have the slow and sad vibes like many other breakup songs do. Despite reflecting the ends of relationships, each song provides an upbeat and fun take on the situations. Knox explores a variety of stylistic choices within the pop genre throughout his EP.
The EP starts off with “Hate My Guts.” Knox sings about taking the blame for the end of a relationship and the resulting emotional pain. He sings, “take a look around and you’re not here and I just can’t believe you’re gone, but the beat goes on and on,” followed by a repeated instrumental and electronic beat. “Hate My Guts” introduces Knox’s musical style well and prepares listeners for the themes and songs to come.
Throughout the EP, Knox paid attention to detail. Not only did Knox’s lyrics and vocals draw listeners in, but the background instrumentals and electronic sounds could leave the listeners moving with the music. On top of that, in his songs, “Time Machine” and “Dumpster Fire,” Knox used ambient sound to emphasize the song titles and metaphors. For instance, listeners could hear a clock ticking throughout “Time Machine,” and “Dumpster Fire” opens with the crackling noises of a fire. The use of ambient noises and speech in songs is something that seems to be gaining popularity in the pop music genre.
My personal favorite song on the EP is, “NYC,” and is closely followed by “Dumpster Fire” and “Porch Lights.” When Knox teased “NYC” on the social media application TikTok, he only teased the beginning portion of the song. It starts with a slower, calmer melody. After listening to the song, my jaw dropped. The build-up in tempo and volume reflected the feeling of letting go. He sang about “all this tightness in [his] chest,” and at the end, it sounded like he was freed from that feeling. On a TikTok post, he captioned “this song is for anybody who ever feels [overwhelmed] by the weight of the world and would do anything to go to a new place and try again.” If you haven’t listened to this song yet, go put headphones on and listen! Headphones create a whole different immersive experience with the build-up in this song, especially when listening to it for the first time.
Knox first gained attention on TikTok with the third song on the EP, “Sneakers.” Since then, he has gained over 126,000 followers on his TikTok account, @musicbyknox, and “Sneakers” has over 17 million streams on Spotify. He also had the opportunity to open for one of his musical inspirations, The Band CAMINO, in September of 2022. He wrote on a TikTok post, “[point of view] you get to open for your favorite band & then watch the show every night with the best view.” In that same month, he released his fourth song on the album, “I Don’t Wanna Know.”
I would 100% recommend listening to “How To Lose a Girl in 7 Songs,” especially if you like pop, pop-rock, electro-pop, and other similar genres and styles of music. Each song is fun, creative, and makes the listener want to sing along out loud. I look forward to hearing more music from Knox in the future and seeing if he goes on tour.
