Generally speaking, most pop artists’ debut singles aren’t terribly risky, in content or in sound.

Sophia Messa isn’t most artists. She just released her first single, “moneydontfixlonely,” kick-starting her career with a definitive sonic statement that pulls unabashedly from the annals of power-pop in order to introduce a new artist to the industry.

The track itself is as theatrical as a pop single can get, with a ringing organ-like intro leading into a sawing acoustic guitar, darkly echoing synths, and an exploding drum line surging under Messa’s powerful contralto. For a new artist, Messa is bracingly assured as both a singer and a narrator, and her confidence carries the song forward with aplomb. She reflects on her imposter syndrome, her heavy feelings of isolation in an image-obsessed world, and coping with her pain with drinking and running headlong into ill-fated relationships. “I just wanted you to want to hold me,” Messa pleads to a disembodied lover, just before this line: “Been looking for someone to entertain me / But I’m the only one that’s gonna save me.” Messa muddies the water on “moneydontfixlonely,” jumping back and forth from alienation to determination, but still manages to lend a grounding element to the song’s sense of melodrama.

It’s perhaps too early to say whether the 19-year-old singer-songwriter is a surefire star in the making, or to try and predict what’s to follow “moneydontfixlonely.” But Messa’s adept use of the tools of modern pop, and her self-aware invocation of the “silver spoon on my tongue,” might just be the kind of distinction she needs to make her mark as a serious budding artist.

moneydontfixlonely

Matthew Apadula is a writer and music critic from New York. His work has previously appeared on GIGsoup Music and in Drunk in a Midnight Choir. Find him on Twitter @imdoingmybest.

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