Haim is a three-piece pop-rock band made up of sisters Este (bass guitar and vocals), Danielle (vocals and guita), and Alana Haim (guitars, keyboards, and vocals), from Los Angeles, California. Women in Music Pt. III is their third studio album, released on June 26th, 2020.
It's known that each of the sisters have faced a personal struggle after touring for their previous album and brought it to the studio — Este's struggle with Type 1 diabetes, Alana's grief from a best friend passing away at age 20, and Danielle's deep depression after her partner Ariel Rechtshaid was diagnosed with cancer. This album is undeniably personal to the sisters, which is why it feels almost wrong to review it, it feels like a look inside a personal journal, but it is out there and the lyrics are in a way that anyone can understand and feel them too.
This album is, in my opinion, their best so far. I love so much, so many of these songs I feel so deeply inside of me. These songs are about depression, being alone, being broken-hearted & recovering from it, second chances, what it's like to be a woman in music & face misogyny, about love and more
1) Los Angeles
This sound, this is what summer feels and should sound like. I love this song so much, although I can't relate in the exact opposite way — I'm from New York, I love this state & the city with so much of my heart. "These days, these days I can't win / These days I can't see no visions / I'm breakin', losin faith," I feel this so much. One of my top tracks from this record.
2) The Steps
This song is about a changed relationship — one in which her partner doesn't understand her independence, doesn't understand her or why she doesn't need help. She makes money for herself by herself, she's independent and strong, and to her partner, this isn't okay — which is wrong. At the end, the lyrics signify they break up — "If I go right / And you go left / Hey, I know we'll meet up again," but leaving hope that they'll meet in the future when they're both better people, when they've grown. This song is empowering, it tells the listener that it's okay to be an independent person and some people you meet won't understand that on some levels, and it's okay, "That's just life sometimes."
3) I Know Alone
This song is about depression — about that particular symptom of it that makes you isolate yourself from the entire world, that makes you unable to get out of bed or even try to do such. It's that feeling when you're so deep down in it and everything feels the same; nothing changes, nothing is interesting, all you feel is an empty grey shell of yourself. You don't want to talk about how you're feeling because it's so hard and heavy. Nights are long and hard and everyone expects you to just bounce back — "When Sundays comes they expect me to shine," but it's just never that easy, that simple. You can't pick a day when you're going to wake up and be completely out of the fog, if it were possible, I'm sure all of us would be happier people.
4) Up From A Dream
My favorite from the entire record. I love this song so much that I can barely communicate my love for this in a way that makes sense and fully expresses it. The guitar in this, WOW. It's got a bit of a Shania Twain feel, that twangy-pop rock country music sound she had in the 90's. "Something you see wakes you up from the dream / Wanna go back to sleep but now you're up from the dream / Walk into the kitchen, pull the dishes from the sink / And you have changed in the blink of a eye." I've spent one too many nights waking up from bad dreams or not even falling asleep until very late because of bad thoughts running through my head and ending up fighting these feelings sitting on my kitchen floor, eating a breakfast food and thinking, writing about it. I can't say if doing so has made all that much change in me, but definitely has done quite a bit.
5) Gasoline
It's a slow, a very lust-filled track. It's not my thing, but it's not bad. It's about going back to a lover but you're a bit of a mess still, and a bit sad, both of you are toxic to each other but you're back with each other. I can't quite figure out who's the gasoline and who's the flame in this song — is it the singer, is the lover? Either way, very toxic, very lust-driven.
6) 3am
This song is about avoiding calls and messages from an ex — you don't want to talk to them, you don't want to go back to them again, but you entertain the thought because you can't help it. It's hard to move on from people who left your life and meant so much to you at one point, it truly makes your head spin.
7) Don't Wanna
This track's about not wanting to let go of a toxic relationship. The other person was clearly bad for her, but she doesn't want to give up, to throw it all away — maybe there's a chance to make it better, after all, they're both to blame, "Well, we both had nights wakin' up in stranger's beds."
8) Another Try
This song is about giving thought to the idea of giving a relationship just one more try — you've both been bad, you've both hurt each other, but feelings are still there and you can't just move on, so why not give it another try? And if it doesn't work, if "...it's luck that's not on our side," she wishes the best for the next relationship her ex has.
9) Leaning On You
The Fleetwood Mac vibes are strong with this track, you could literally find this track on one of their early records and you wouldn't find anything out of place. This song is about being a bit of a mess but you have someone to lean on, someone to help you through it, someone that will push you to take care of yourself and handle all the big, heavy emotions and experiences that life brings, and hopefully doing the same for this someone back. It's about a best friend.
10) I've Been Down
Another track about depression and trying to live through it; about feeling lost and confused in life and asking someone to help you figure it all out, to be with you through it.
11) Man From The Magazine
This one talks about the sexist, inappropriate questions the sisters have faced in & outside of interviews regarding their place as a woman in music. It's only a glimpse of what women in music face on a daily basis — women get their music knowledge & love tested, picked apart and analyzed, gets their skill & talents diminished and pushed aside, made into a joke, sexualized to no end. "I don't want to hear / It is what it is / It was what it was...You don't know how it feels / You expect me to deal with it / 'Til I'm perfectly numb / But you don't know how it feels." Men expect us to stay quiet, to shut up and laugh at their cruel jokes and inappropriate sexual comments, at every microaggression they put out, at everything they say and do to women in music without question because that's how it has always been, but it's wrong and it shouldn't be like that. Women should have a louder voice in all genres and places of the music industry, we should be able to call out mistreatment and sexism without fear of having our careers ruined and sent death threats, without being attacked. .
12) All That Ever Mattered
This is about having a relationship but having what feels the whole world to look into it and feel like they have a right to make comments on it, but you don't care about them, you only care about your partner. Your partner didn't see that it was only them that mattered to you, however, so it ended, and this song is making it clear on what ever actually mattered.
13) FUBT
This one's about loving a toxic person, about loving someone who's hurt you.
14) Now I'm In It
This is about finally accepting that you can't be friends with your ex, that you want them and you can't move on from it. It's about fighting for a love you know will be good, a love you believe in and don't want to give up on.
15) Hallelujah
This song is emotionally the heaviest off the whole record. It's about grief, it's about losing a loved one and knowing that you will be able to feel okay again someday, without them here on this planet. Musically, it sounds a lot like Fleetwood Mac's Landslide, it has that entire vibe.
16) Summer Girl
The final track from this record, a bonus track as it was released over a year ago. It's funky and fresh, it's one of my favorites. It sounds like summer, just like the first track, Los Angeles, does, so it finishes off the album in a very full-circle, uplifting way.
You can stream Women In Music Pt. III on whichever platform you prefer, and buy merch and physical copies of the record here, and follow Haim on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Youtube.
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