If this pandemic has given us anything, it’s time spent focusing on ourselves and our needs, whether that’s finding a new hobby or taking some serious time to focus on our health, both physical and mental. The pandemic has also given us time to discover new artists like IAN SWEET. IAN SWEET, born Jillian Medford, took advantage of all this time spent at home by taking some serious TLC on her mental health. In 2014, the journey of IAN SWEET really got started. After graduating from Berklee College of Music, Jillian put together a band to help accompany her and build her dreamy pop sound. Just four years later, Jillian parted from the band and started honing in on her craft. Her latest single, “Sing Till I Cry,” is just another highly anticipated release from this new artist.
“Sing Till I Cry” is a dreamy and edgy indie-pop masterpiece. The strung-out, almost out-of-tune guitar makes for a surprisingly smooth and enjoyable listening experience. As the song continues and builds, the raspy guitar chords smooth out into a rocky ballad. The words to the song, though, play out as a confession to something. Like the other tracks on Show Me How You Disappear, “Sing Till I Cry” has helped her deal with her past traumas and her struggle with anxiety. The first couple of lines of the song Jillian sings about it took her a while to share something and what she’s gone through. How before she could get the words out, she started running at full speed. It’s an honest and vulnerable song with an incredibly addictive rhythm.
The video for “Sing Till I Cry” plays out like a moving scrapbook of colorful and everchanging collages. From the very beginning of the video, different images start flashing in and out. Throughout the video, we see snippets of photos and videos of IAN SWEET herself, but that’s the only time we see in the video. Other than that, it’s just photographs of flowers, animals, and random bits of imagery. The lyrics roll into the frame on colorful and bold label makers, making this colorful scrapbook of a video complete. It’s a look inside the multicolored world of IAN SWEET, and we can’t get enough of it.
