The Daily Spin II

Hazel English | Real Life

Welcome back to the Daily Spin. For the uninitiated, this is the series in which I review an album every day of 2025.

As was the case two years ago, my favorite song from each album can be found at the playlist linked here.

Album: Real Life (2024)

Artist: Hazel English

Link:

I didn’t realize this until I was sitting down to actually write this review and looking at Hazel English’s full body of work, but a good chunk of this record came out years prior to being released as a single monolith under the Real Life moniker.

Still, it’s a good one. This is a genuinely pleasant listen the whole way through - it’s clear that English knows her formula and she’s not afraid of staying in her lane over extended distance. It’s a choice that works, but it does lend itself to a stale flavor towards the back end of the record.

Two strong features from fellow soft creator Day Wave headline the best parts of this album, with some solid singles that back their way into the top side of it all - meanwhile, I’d say that the bottom of the record suffers from being too much of a decent thing. Though the songs aren’t necessarily significantly worse than the front, it just gets tiring to be given the same exact scenario time after time after time. Considering that these songs also feel the same as her first releases from 2016, maybe it’s time to look past the horizon and dream of exploration.

Rating: 6/10

Best Tracks: All Dressed Up

Worst Tracks: Hamilton