If I had to predict Apple Music’s next upcoming artist, it would be Sienna Spiro. I am always looking for underground musicians, and when my boyfriend introduced me to Spiro, I immediately knew I would have her EP, “SINK NOW, SWIM LATER”, on repeat. I found out she was only a year older than me, 19. I really could not believe the emotion coming out of a young voice like that. The eight songs kicking off her career are beyond impressive.
The EP released on February 21, 2024, begins with “BUTTERFLY EFFECT”, a ballad about a sequence of events that took place up to her meeting a past partner, hence the name. I have thought about the butterfly effect many times and I haven’t heard a song that simulates that sense of ponder. The melancholic piano at the beginning drew me in because it sounded very somber and like the albums for the James Bond movies. Later on in the song, the piano crescendos as she spirals down the events that she wished never happened. It sends me down a spiral of events in my own life that relate to her.
The next song off the EP is “NEED ME”, my personal favorite. It focuses on the premise of wanting to feel needed in a relationship.
“Selfishly, I have to be the only air that you can breathe” Spiro says after repeating the phrase “I need you,” emphasizing the idea that she needs her partner as much as she hopes they need her. The rough-edge to her voice emphasizes how deeply she feels these emotions. She has a talent for reflecting her emotions onto people who listen to her music. That’s powerful! This EP almost feels like a story. It truly engulfs the stages of grief and betrayal.
“TAXI DRIVER”, her third single released outside of her EP, tells the story of the brutal ride home after finding her boyfriend cheating on her with her best friend.
“I sat there in his [the taxi driver’s] car and I made him drive round and round and round, and I just cried to him,” Spiro said in a self-made clip for Spotify. One lyric stood out to me and made my heart drop. She said “only one mile away,” after expressing that she was pouring her feelings out to him. That lyric showed the story moving along and that she was about to leave the car she was getting comfortable in.
Her most popular song, and my second favorite off the EP, called “MAYBE” describes her overall experience of being hurt and hoping that the person who hurt her will someday feel the same pain she’s in. The bridge in this song sounds very similar to the bridge in Billie Eilish’s song, “Watch” from her EP “don’t smile at me”.
“Don’t fantasize when you picture me. When you close your eyes and I’m in your dreams” said Spiro in “MAYBE” compared to Eilish’s lyric “When you close your eyes, do you picture me? When you fantasize, am I your fantasy?” Those both sound like the same melody and it happens in the same part of each song. I think that’s why I am drawn to her.
I have been a fan of Billie Eilish since I was 12 years old and she released her first album, “WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?”, in 2019. I feel the same specific gut feeling that Spiro will be as successful as Eilish and I am here to see the beginning of her amazing career, just as I was for Eilish.
Maybe it is due to the fact that Spiro and I are closer in age and I can relate more to her music but I think she is better than Billie Eilish when she was starting out. Vocally, she portrays more talent than Eilish. She has a way with words, emotions, and she still sounds perfect without autotune.
