This week emerging pop-rockers Midnight Playlist unleashed their debut EP – ‘Built To Break’. Coming in at just 18 minutes, the quartet showcase a tidy blend of summery pop-rock hooks with straight-up rock numbers that quickly win you over.
Sure they ‘Built To Break’ hits all the right marks but what’s the story behind the EP? Well thankfully vocalist Aaron Akpojaro recently took some time out to talk Already Heard through the EP.
1. A Year In Hell
‘A Year In Hell’ is about feeling like you’d rather face the world alone than have to deal with the stress that comes with relationships. Sometimes you feel let down, or you feel like a destructive force, and it seems safer to want to shut people out, which is wrong. People need people and that’ll always be true, so in a way this is a pretty short-sighted song, but there was a long period in my life where I felt horribly lonely and the only way I could feel okay about it was to try and justify it to myself.
Built To Break by Midnight Playlist
2. Desperate
‘Desperate’ is the story of two people growing up and apart, and whose to blame when things don’t work out how you hoped. The verses and the choruses in this song are really contrasting. In the chorus I’m trying to absolve myself of blame for how pathetic I feel about the whole thing, but in the verses I’m more real about the whole situation – we’re different now, we’re in different places and it’s not anyone’s fault really. Things fall apart and often it makes more sense to let it happen than to pull it together by force.
3. Undone
‘Undone’ was written simply because I was sick of writing sad songs. For a little while I just wanted to be free of feeling sorry for myself, so I decided to write about taking on the world in a more positive light, something that I’d want to live by. There’s not much more to it.
4. Built To Break
‘Built To Break’ deals with a few things. Firstly, the fact that being accountable and being sorry don’t go hand in hand. It was written in the aftermath of me fucking up hugely, but I don’t apologise because truthfully making that mistake taught me something. I had to hit rock bottom to realise I was falling at all, and in the end I turned myself around. Secondly, there’s the idea of moving down a route which people disapprove of, and having the courage to tell people to take you as are. You shouldn’t have to bend to make room for other people’s views. If you don’t fit their mould, break it.
5. Hollow
To be hollow is, by definition, to be empty, and that’s what the song is about. Not empty as in lonely or anything, but empty as in lacking in substance. There definitely was a while where I wasn’t really invested in anything that was going on around me, and I let things slip through my fingers because I simply didn’t care enough. I was hollow, and naive to think that neglecting everything I’d built up would ever benefit me. In the end, it just became harder for me to fix things when I came to my senses.
6. Tear Away
One of the hardest things that comes with relationships is admitting when one is holding you down rather than lifting you up – especially when it’s someone important. ‘Tear Away’ is about having the guts to remove yourself from an unproductive situation for your own sake. It’s not about any one specific person, which is great because I think the lyrics are broad enough to be a lot more relatable than some of the other tracks. I feel like people will definitely be able to empathise with it.
‘Built To Break’ by Midnight Playlist is out now.