Claire Cottril or more commonly known as Clairo, is a huge staple within the indie and bedroom pop genre of music. Originally recording covers on her laptop, Clairo rose to fame after uploading her music video “Pretty Girl” to YouTube in 2017. This upload gained an enormous amount of attention across multiple social media platforms and would be the catalyst to her professional music career. In 2019 Clairo would release her first album titled “Immunity” which was an instant success with songs like “Sofia” and “Bags” each charting on the billboard 100 a year after their initial release. “Sofia” gained immense popularity on the social media platform TikTok and is commonly associated with the 2019 VSCO aesthetic. However, there is an under-appreciated song on the album I recently rediscovered this past summer titled “Softly”. Compared to Sofia’s 927 million streams and Bags’s 507 million streams “Softly”has only garnered 175 million within the 6 years it’s been released. The track features a gentle melody with very heartfelt lyrics. Clairo explores a yearning for connection with a distant person while also facing the complexity that accompanies it. The song captures the vulnerability and longing feeling those feel while in the early stages of falling in love. Compared to her usual dreamy sound “Softly” is much more intimate and resonates with the feeling of love that listeners hold. Overall “Softly” is a very under appreciated track on the “Immunity” album that deserves more attention due to not only being relatable but also because of its theme of vulnerability.
