Scars to Your Beautiful

Tamara, from TGWTG, in her Hyper Fangirl persona

Eli Jenal

I just saw the review. I think the reason why we're seeing so many sad pop songs now is that young people are feeling horrible in these dark times and need to hear their pain reflected back at them. It's like the message of the Pixar film, "Inside Out"; when people are genuinely suffering, Joy can feel like a hollow response. That's why people need to express Sadness.

James

Who was the guest star in this episode? Usually I recognize the reviewers that step in from time to time.

Rish Outfield

Idk, Todd. Lots of generic inspirational songs out there, but this is the only one I can think of about self-injury (arguably, anyway) that genuinely sounds hopeful. Like, that doesn't seem like a common enough topic in inspirational songs to have become a cliche quite yet, you know? It's too stigmatized still, it's not a palatable thing to write about in mainstream happy-ish pop music. And this song at least isn't "you're beautiful and therefore you can totally get yourself a boyfriend/girlfriend/enbyfriend," which is something. It *is* a song I can seeing helping someone who listens to it.

Eli Jenal

Yeah, exactly this. I think the only part I liked about it was the "whoa" part, lol. I'm very very tired of the "everyone's beautiful!!" trope thing.

So, despite this song being mediocre, I enjoyed "Here" and "Wild Things" and put the album on my Christmas list. I should've had reservations about an album released by a teenager titled Know-It-All. And when the first track, titled "Seventeen" began with the line "My daddy says life comes at you fast" (and, upon a relisten just now, that comes after an Oh-oh-oh-oh-ohhhhh intro), I realized what I was in for. An album of overconfident pretension with occasional moments of brilliance.

Jonathan P

I was a teenage girl who struggled with depression, self-harm, and anorexia, so I feel 100% qualified to criticize this song: it blows. It totally acknowledges and even empathizes with feelings like you're not good enough (like in the second verse), but never really dismisses them except with platitudes. Plus, the whole breakdown of "No better life than the life we're living" is, uh, maybe the worst thing to say? Rather the opposite of the "it gets better" campaign. "Nothing gets better. This is it." I was the perfect target audience for this and I *promise* it's still garbage.

Kelsey Gardner

That's alright Todd, the beautiful rich pop star is just as unqualified to sing this song as you are to review it. So it all works out fairly.

Thegodhand

This song sort of rubs me the wrong way, though it may be because I misunderstand the lyrics. Before the review, I though that Alessia was saying something along the lines of "your scars are beautiful", as in "cutting is beautiful" or something along those lines. So, yeah, I was half expecting Todd to go into a "what's wrong with you tirade" when he figured out the song was about cutting.

...this may be the single worst factual error that's ever made it into a video of mine. I am going to recut this episode.

Todd in the Shadows

Speaking as a woman with self-esteem issues that come more from social anxiety than appearance, I actually quite like "Here" not just because I had that same feeling at times back in the day but also because I can believe the singer did too. It felt REAL.This song, though, doesn't. She sounds so unenthusiastic singing it, and the video, where she just kind of shifts around, doesn't help at all. I may loathe "All About that Base" but I believe Meghann Trainor believed every word of it (which is part of the problem, says the skinny bitch). "Firework" might be a super dumb song, but Katy Perry belts it out like she's saying some grand manifesto. "Born This Way" I especially buy as a 100% legitimate expression of Lady Gaga's support for diversity. This, though? She sings it with all the ardor of someone under contractual obligation. Maybe with a different performer and arrangement it would work for me better.

Martha Boatright

Body Like a Backroad notwithstanding, the genre's arguably coming down from its bro-country high thanks to the influence of Chris Stapleton. So even they're moving a little in this direction, if only since grimness is a lot more normal in country music.

Teddy Haines

One of my roommates listens to this song all. The. Time. Its vapidness is scarred to my beautiful brain. Good review tho

I know that the main criticism is that the song is too dreary for an Inspirational Pop Song , but can we honestly blame today's pop music for being a bit of a downer? A lot of pop music is written, sung, and produced by people of color, people who emphasize with or are members of the LGBT+ community, or at least liberals. I know the singer you are mentioning is Canadian, but Canada is not a utopia of racial, gender, and sexual equality, and America DEFINITELY isn't. The only people, especially Americans, who are in a position to make 100% Happy Bouncy Music right now are conservative male country singers, and well...

I'm so tired of seeing the cliché cancer patient that only finds happiness when they show their hairless head. Don't get me wrong, cancer will fuck up your body and your body image and self-esteem is an important issue for cancer patients, especially women. But that image has been so overused that it's no longer uplifting and sincere, it feels like a cheap cliché, a check on the self-esteem anthem video list. You NEED a cancer patient without hair in your video.

No. He also said that Alessia Cara was black. She is not.

Markus Sarén

Ruth B is though, which is what he was talking about.

Crow

Todd... Alessia Cara isn't black. Like, she doesn't even look black. She's freaking Italian, dude!

Markus Sarén

Todd in the Shadows: tearing down messages of hope since 2009.

Daniel Beckett

I never was really able to listen to the lyrics when it's on the radio. It just sounds like one constant note to me, and I have to switch the station every time it comes on. Musically, it's extremely flat and uninteresting.

I hope we get some relief from the dreary songs on 2016. Maybe we'll some intense political songs breaking through, given the circumstances. In the mean-time, don't kick yourself for criticizing these songs - an inspirational song should be good as well as inspirational, and there's nothing wrong with criticizing one over not being so.

Brett

You're doing great work, Todd. You're one of the few people that is actually dissecting this bullshit song for what it is. If Alessia Cara actually wanted to write an inspirational song, she would inject some personal anecdote to it or at least make it upbeat, like the songs you mentioned. But she didn't and she doesn't. I doubt she actually wrote that pandering drivel and I thank you so much for not making me feel like the only soulless person that despises "Scars to Your Beautiful". God bless you 🤗

Matt Whitaker