“Sinner Dressed in Saint Laurent” by Goody Grace, Wednesday, April 13, 2022

Before the pandemic, everything seemed to be on an upward trajectory for singer-songwriter/rapper/producer Branson Gudmundson, known by his stage name Goody Grace. The 24-year-old Manitoban musician started in his teens covering pop music. He began producing his own music on a laptop, as he tells podcaster Mike Gunz, out of necessity as there weren't any major studios in his hometown of Selkirk, Manitoba, Canada. His earlier songs mix auto-tuned vocals, trap beats, drum samples, and love guitars to create blend of Emo Rap. When Goody Grace moved to Los Angelos, his career started to gain traction.

I WANT OUT, BABY TRUCE. Whether it was writing songs for Machine Gun Kelly or filling in guest spots in his singles and EP tracks with the likes of Juicy J, Cigarettes After Sex, or even blink-182, the young artist has built an impressive resume up to this point. He and blink-182 performed his single "Scumbag" before the pandemic on Jimmy Kimmel. In 2021, Goody Grace released his full-length debut record in February, and at the end of September, he released the EP Nostalgia Kills. Heavily influenced by '80s post-punk, the five songs takes Gudmundson into a cohesive sound that is both modern and timeless. The subtle guitar on today's song "Sinner Dressed in Saint Laurent" calls back to a new wave band, but Gudmundson's vocals and the beats keep the song anchored in 2021. Back in 2018, a 21-year-old Gudmundson released a single titled "Nostalgia Is a Lie," in which the singer says that "nostalgia lied to [him] . . . making [him] believe / That everything that happened back then, was all so easy." In "Nostalgia Kills" Gudmundson says, "If our broken hearts don't kill us / The nostalgia will." In the last two years, there has been a lot of music released as artists have been busier than ever writing and recording music without having to hit the road to tour their back catalogue. But rather than listening to new music, many people are listening to older music--what they listened to in high school. Perhaps is everyone on a fatal date with nostalgia?

ROCKSTAR LIFE, SHE SO FAR FROM AVERAGE. "Sinner Dressed in Saint Laurent" is a short, repetitive track. Goody Grace may have the new TikTok flash-and-forget song structure down, but I'm hoping to hear longer tracks and more developed verses in the singer's future. Criticism aside, though, "Sinner" is quite catchy. We get this imagery of late nights with the band, only for young Goody to be tempted by a sexy fashionista whose love and passion ultimately turn sour. Saint Laurent is a French high fashion line founded by Yves Saint Laurent in 1962. The song plays on the contrast between "Saints and sinners," setting up a false premise that only good people would wear a fashion line that uses the word saint in it. Of course, none of us are actually fooled by this simple word play, but we are still left with the image of a ruthless well-dressed woman. If the devil wears Prada, then why can't a sinner wear Saint Laurent? The late-night imagery of this song reminds me of the lines in Anberlin's "Dance, Dance, Christa Päffgan," simply for the story surrounding the German singer Nico and the muse that she gave the '80s post-punk scene before her untimely death in 1988. Nico continues to be an Emo/punk rock muse today, and she has over 2 million monthly listeners on Spotify. Maybe the well-dressed woman in today's song is a Nico of the new Emo generation.

Read “Sinner Dressed in Saint Laurent” by Goody Grace on Genius.

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