By Kristen Hawley | 12 September 2023
If you’re a fan of Madison Beer and obsessed with the pop genre, pay attention! Because Gabi Sklar is your girl to watch.
An all-consuming love that many radio artists sing about is something everyone strives for and even fantasizes about.These songs describe a love and relationship that wraps itself so tightly around every fiber of your being and sucks up all the oxygen in the room. While this is a quality most certainly written about in Colleen Hoover novels, in actuality, if you’re tangled up with the wrong person the oxygen in the room isn’t being consumed with your mutual affection – their narcissism is suffocating you.
23-year-old New York pop artist, Gabi Sklar perfectly describes that moment acknowledging and examining the truth about her partner she might have overlooked during the relationship. “Thank God” bottles up that unspoken, yet universal, post-break up experience of letting out a sigh of relief and exasperatingly saying one thing - thank god. Thank god that the relationship is over with, that person is out of your life, but also thank god you’re not the same person you were: not the same person that fell for someone who chipped away at your light, but someone stronger: “Thank God, dodged a bullet/Couple inches closer/It could’ve, it would’ve been over.”
Every line of the “Thank God” chorus is laced with recognition as Gabi sings, “You took my sunshine/Turned it to rain, Stealing the joy out of everything/Doing it over and over again/ I’ll never be, never be the same. Meanwhile Gabi’s verses relish in gratitude. Her gratitude of realizing her partner feeds off of attention and drains her happiness rather than contributes to it. And the gratitude of her relationship’s end and what life could feel like without that person. “Thank God, now suddenly everything feels calm/ I moved on from you.”
Gabi shows off a bit more of a sexy and daring side in previous songs such as, “Pardon My French” and “Good Kisser.” While “Thank God” isn’t too far off sonically from the previous two tracks, it’s a lyrical reality check. One lyric in particular stood out to me that really demonstrates how aware Gabi was in analyzing her relationship. As she sings, “Look at all this wreckage/You broke, I repaired it/Thank God,” not only is she seeing how much damage her partner was causing to the relationship, but also to herself.
Many people can interpret Gabi’s lyrics, “You broke, I repaired it/Thank God” as her picking up the pieces and fixing the relationship's cracks to make it survive as long as possible. But this line stings because she wasn’t fixing the damage within the relationship, but the damage her partner caused to her self-esteem and psyche: “Cause you took the air out of my lungs/And I didn’t even like who I was/Who I was with you”. Gabi’s thanking God isn’t that their love was able to carry on at the expense and constant repairing on her part. But, she’s more so thanking God that she was able to fix the damage within herself by leaving.
I applaud Gabi’s ability to put so much truth in her songwriting but also a sense of self-confidence during an emotionally unstable moment. While a break-up, self-reflection record usually finds its groove in a piano-centered ballad, Gabi Sklar’s raw vocals laid over a guitar brings a slight indie feel to this pop record.
