Alessia Cara’s newest album, Love and Hyperbole, was released on February 14, 2025. °1824, an inclusive team that connects fans and artists, hosted a press conference with Alessia Cara to discuss her fourth album as a whole; from topics of imagery, writing processes, and personal moments from the record. 

With a career that started back in the early 2010s, Cara has encountered a lot of success with past musical projects and hit songs that are still timeless. Some of her first viral hits such as “Here”, “Wild Things”, and "Scars To Your Beautiful” released in 2016 on her debut album, Know-It-All. These helped to rocket her popularity as an artist. In 2017, she was featured on the hit song “Stay”, which now has over half a billion streams on the lyric video posted on YouTube. Her sophomore album, which is a personal favorite of mine, The Pains of Growing, includes hit singles “Out of Love” and “Growing Pains”. Cara’s third album, In The Meantime, features singles “Sweet Dream” and “Shapeshifter” that became popular hits, along with tracks “You Let Me Down” and “Best Days” being audience favorites. Her career also includes winning a Grammy in 2018 for Best New Artist. During the press conference, Cara was asked about her successful career and her accomplishments and how she proceeds with that momentum of trying to create hit records. “I think simplicity is always the best route to take when you're trying to reach a large group of people. Saying something that’s universal, tapping into something. Yes it’s simple but also gets past all the facade and hits you deeply. And if it’s not super serious even if it’s a lighthearted fun song, it strikes a chord in people,” Cara replied. Even with years of hard work and accomplishments, Alessia Cara still proceeds forward with the humble quest of simplicity to touch hearts through her craft. 

Alessia talked more personally on her culture of growing up in Canada and how her influence and culture has been a part of her musical journey. “Canada really celebrates the different colors of the mosaic and so many different people. I just feel really fortunate to have grown up around that and it definitely formed a lot of my songwriting just because of the openness that it brought me you know? Like the understanding of the world.” The base of her music, she explained, also comes from roots of her favorite music. She explained how a majority of the album was recorded predominantly live, similar to music that was recorded in the 50s through 70s in just a couple or even a single take. Cara shared how there are orchestral and string sections sprinkled throughout the tracks on the album. She brought up the inspirations she has for this album which include Billy Joel, The Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, Bob Dylan, Stevie Nicks, and more. These legends of music are Cara’s source of inspiration just as she is to others. 

Getting into the album discussion, some beautiful details that I enjoyed learning about were the connection of the colors to feelings that are held within the cover art and stylistic choices. Cara explained a personal fact of her thought processes behind her projects, “I have always been this way. I have always related colors and shapes and sort of just whole universes to every song, every project of mine. I don’t know if it’s related to this thing I have called synesthesia...it’s very true and real for me. I do have this thing where I see colors when I hear sounds. That’s always just helped be a catalyst for what I want the different albums to look like”. She continues more specifically touching on this Love and Hyperbole, “the obvious answer would be love. You see the imagery of red, when it comes to Valentine's day love and things like that. I also just think red, especially that specific wine color that’s on the album cover that’s very sophisticated and rich. And it has a warmth to it with some cool undertones. I think the contrast of that with the warmth and the cool tones were just very indicative of what the album means to me which is all about contrast, we need contrast in life…the negative and positive working in tandem. It just felt like the right thing to represent the music.” I love how Cara can attach the topics of color and advice all in one album. The color tones are definitely romantic and cozy with the reds and helps to create that exact feeling for fans when listening to these songs. Audiences can experience right away and feel a connection between the different aspects of the album’s concept. Having not just an album, but a whole vision board for everyone to see and connect to is so special and creatively wise. 

Using musical and visual elements to convey feelings is what should be appreciated most within Alessia Cara’s projects. I love the special meanings that she more closely talked about while projecting her vulnerability about the pictured message. “There’s two sides to the love and hyperbole side, so I wanted to represent the duality…hyperbole uses humor for soothing sad feelings in the album,” Cara unfolded. As talked about with the colors, every decision photography wise for the album cover was intentional as well. As seen in the album cover, Alessia Cara is pictured as double, holding herself. The balance of the two, love and then hyperbole, work together to tell the stories. She continued to unravel more depth meanings, “Sometimes we look at love we so badly want it to work out. We base how we're going to feel after if it works or if it doesn't. I think that so much of love is that actually, and life in general, not so much even trusting that the thing is going to work out. But rather trusting that you’ll be okay if it doesn’t.” Romance and love can be more than the typical relationships that humans think of when those words are involved. Cara has proven that love, trust and commitment can be with you or your life. The balancing act of Love and Hyperbole is for any audience, any listener. I loved when Alessia Cara said, “Not just thinking about my life, but thinking about thor life as well”. There is not just a balancing act on the cover and with the meanings, but a balancing act between artist and listener. 

When asked about what she wants fans to take from the album, she proceeded to say, “I don’t want to tell people what to feel because they might feel something that’s totally different than what I initially intended.” She continued, “The one thing I hope people take from it, especially young women, is the fact that I think we see pain and loss and joy and love as two different things…I think you cannot have love and joy without knowing loss and pain.” Cara didn’t just produce inspiring lyrics and relatable music within a project that’s been so artistically molded, but created room for her listeners to dictate what it’s about. 

Alessia Cara said that the song most personal to her on the album is titled “Fire”. She confessed that this song was a love song without fear, negativity, or stubbornness attached to it; as well as a love letter to someone in her life. On other songs, she said that “(Isn’t it) Obvious” was one of the easiest songs to create because that song already existed to her. “Slow Motion” was a track that falls into the category of being one that was hard to create. Then, she expressed how “Nighttime Thing” was a track that had to evolve over time to get where she wanted it to be.

I was absolutely honored to be a part of °1824 press conference with Alessia Cara and to learn the full and clear story behind Love and Hyperbole. I am thankful that artists such as Cara exist because the world, fans, and musical audiences have somebody to connect to and be their most vulnerable self when listening to her art. Love and Hyperbole is an album filled with passion, love, and all of Alessia Cara’s heart. It’s exhilarating as a fan myself who has followed Cara through her many projects and many songs about heartbreak to hear her say this statement, “My view on love has definitely changed now that I’ve had the chance to experience, to me, something that is like real love.” Her growth of the heart and changing perspective truly shows in this piece. This album is full of romance. It’s not just an album, but a desired storybook.