In a world where anxiety runs amok, Baylee Barrett, aka dani mack, offers up a delightfully lo-fi pop song about overthinking everything: “Nothing Better.”
We at the blog have been known to dive deeply into the depths of obsessive worry, so when we saw that Barrett had offered a sort of empathetic olive branch, our interest was immediately piqued. As you press play, your ears are greeted with a sweet beat, just slightly faster that one’s resting heart rate. There’s a smooth and gentle bass groove that leaves ample space for some vibey, retro guitar noodling and “Nothing Better” is off to a wonderful start.
Barrett’s voice is a definite highlight here and has a very modern and familiar tone, on par with Faye Webster and Julia Jacklin, but what we found most interesting was the sort of spoken and poetic pre-chorus sections. They were almost Fiona Apple-like in both delivery and subject matter as they describe the process of being perfectly capable of letting go of things, but instead choosing to let them drive us mad, “completely fucking mad, all the way off the map.”
