ALBUM REVIEW: Julia Wolf Asserts Her Power on ‘Good Thing We Stayed’

From Queens, New York City, Julia Wolf has spent most of her life traveling on the L train from her house to recording studios to open mic nights and back home, her years of sacrifice and work officially paying off in the release of her debut album Good Thing We Stayed, out January 13, 2023 under BMG Rights Management. Wolf’s belief of “lyrics over everything” is evident in the ten track collection ranging from topics of self-worth, power, and insecurities. While most of the songs revolve around the acknowledgement of Wolf’s successes in the past years — accumulating half a million listeners on Spotify and getting to perform with leading names — she still incorporates more vulnerable looks on her own life, integrating both the good and the bad of all it took to get her here.

Good Thing We Stayed opens with “Now,” Wolf asking listeners to “look at her now” as she sings accompanied by nothing more than a simple trap beat and minor productions. She keeps her sassy, brazen energy in the following track, “Get Off My” as she sings, “Now they tryna do what I did/ Bit my style, but the shoe don’t fit/ Never been like me to talk like this.” Wolf’s strong, melodic voice emphasizes each word as she sings it, creating late night party anthems about knowing your worth,

Wolf teams up with musical sensation Blackbear on the fourth song “Gothic Babe Tendencies,” a look at someone who tends to see the negatives in a relationship but now chooses to see the light instead. The track starts off acoustic before morphing into a dynamic, full-production cloud equipped with trap beats and beautiful harmonies between the two compelling voices. “I got gothic babe tendencies, I always choose the dark/ But what if I surrendered to the sun?”

The sixth track, “Sad Too Young,” steps back from the upbeat, authoritative energy presented in the earlier songs. It’s slower, softer, and showcases Wolf’s intense insecurities in a vulnerable light. As she reflects on her childhood and growing up anxious, she says, “Sleepwalkin’ through my youth/ I can’t remember half of my life/ All the stories they said I was there for/ Got lost while I was tryna stay alive.” This contemplative idea stays through the next song, “Virginity,” as Wolf reminds herself and listeners that after dark moments there will always be good ones.

In “Hot Killer,” the eighth track, Wolf goes back to her overarching tone of self confidence and dominance. As she closes Good Thing We Stayed with “Rookie of The Year,” she takes the time to get autobiographical, sharing her own version of an underdog story and affirming in the end that the most important thing anyone needs to do is believe in themselves.

Good Thing We Stayed can be interpreted in many ways: it can be used to convince people that a certain relationship was worth staying or as a means of self justification. But in Julia Wolf’s debut album, it’s evident that it’s a declarative statement that all the hardwork and dedication she’s put in over the past years has paid off and it was, undoubtedly, worth it to have stuck through.