Country-pop music darling Megan Moroney initially rose to prominence with her 2021 single “Wonder” — a hit that quickly established her as a girly, relatable Gen Z star. Her 2023 debut album “Lucky” cemented this status and her sophomore album “Am I Okay?” found broader mainstream success, peaking at #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 and officially taking Moroney from a promising rising star to a star in her own right, one well on her way to perfecting the storytelling prowess she is known for.
Despite what the title track of her latest effort might suggest, in Moroney’s latest album, she is rarely on “Cloud 9.” Moroney spends the majority of the 15-track record moping, which is a far cry from the bright, lighthearted tone of lead single “6 Months Later.” When Moroney does try to be upbeat, though, her songwriting suffers. “Stupid,” a track in which she laments being ghosted, stands out as particularly, well, stupid. Its chorus revolves around one-dimensional, underdeveloped lyrics chiding a man for being “a lotta bit pretty and a little dumb.”
This style of songwriting, blending internet-inflected language with commentary on modern dating, is the crux of her appeal for many fans who revel in her relatability as a Gen Z pop star. To those outside her immediate fanbase, the songwriting will simply induce eye-rolling, as it lends itself to Moroney’s tendency to digitize romance, with the heartbreak she sings of often stemming from a digital disagreement between herself and a lover. The overemphasis on Moroney’s digital world throughout her music sands down any possibility of vulnerable emotional depth, rendering her work as far from timeless or emotionally relatable as possible. True relatability in any artist comes from their willingness to bear their soul to the audience so that listeners can see themselves within it, not from ironically recounting a relatable situation.
Moroney clears this hurdle, though, when she shifts her subject matter to revolve around more personal — and arguably less marketable — topics. In “Liars & Tigers & Bears,” Moroney examines the state of the music industry through the lens of a naive, starry-eyed musician, reciting demands she’s felt the weight of over the course of her career, such as the command to “Love everybody, aren’t you all friends? / Even the ones that we’ve pit you against?” This track is reminiscent of “Hell of a Show” off of “Am I Okay?”, arguably Moroney’s most vulnerable song to date. “Hell of a Show” is a self-soothing lullaby she sings to herself before having to be “on stage in twenty,” a repetitious melody reminding her to keep it together for her fans despite a toxic relationship seeping into and dulling all aspects of her life. Tracks such as “Liars & Tigers & Bears” and “Hell of a Show” are less marketable to the general audience, as probably not many of Megan Moroney’s fans can relate to the trials of popstar life, but it’s in these songs where she truly shines. There is no attempt to be overly witty or down-to-earth, but instead, she simply lets her walls down, which is a catalyst for a true sense of relatability.
The ballads on “Cloud 9” are frequent and largely repetitive, but the two duets on the album are standouts. “I Only Miss You” with Ed Sheeran grounds Moroney’s twangy, airy voice by providing contrast and balancing her out while highlighting some of the strongest lyricism on the album. Still, even here, the heartbreak feels contrived and restricted by the lyrics’ excessive simplicity and lack of concrete detail.
“Bells & Whistles” with Kacey Musgraves, while largely forgettable musically, serves as an inadvertent reminder of Musgraves’ supremacy in Moroney’s field. While “Golden Hour,” Musgraves’ 2018 album and winner of the 2019 Grammy Album of the Year, blends country instrumentation and pop production seamlessly, inventively layering banjo riffs and reverb on the same tracks, Moroney tends to simply layer pop production over fully realized country songs. This production style makes the attempted genre-bending feel commercially polished rather than a facet of artistic expression.
Musgraves sets an extremely high bar for lyrical complexity, innovative production and emotional nuance and her presence on the album only highlights where “Cloud 9” fell short. While Moroney is undeniably a talented musician, she struggles to balance contemporary charm and appeal to a younger audience with the depth required for her music to withstand the test of time. In the words of Musgraves’ “Butterflies,” “cloud nine was always out of reach.” Moroney seems, for now, to be the one still reaching for it.
