History of a Feeling by Madi Diaz | Album Review
Diaz is back after 7 years with a raw honest look at breaking up and processing it afterwards.
Listen to History of a Feeling on Apple Music and Spotify.
Madi Diaz made a fan out of me after seeing her open for Mat Kearney back in 2019. I watched her reinvent Paula Abdul’s “Straight Up” and was taken by her talent. Diaz is a songwriter in her own right having writing, sung, or played with a number of artists including: James Blunt, William Fitzsimmons, Miranda Lamber, Joshua Radin, Little Big Town, Kesha, and Pentatonix to name a few. Her most recent solo album, History of a Feeling, was released Summer of 2021. Her work has slipped my mind until hearing her take on the track she co-wrote for Kesha’s 2020 album High Road, “Resentment”. Madi wrote this record at the end of a relationship as she transitioned back to Nashville from Los Angeles. This record is one of surviving a breakup and moving forward. Diaz had broken up with then partner Teddy Geiger, who has since come out as transgender, her publishing deal had ended, and she was leaving behind the life she once knew to embark on a new chapter back in a familiar place.
Diaz opens with the still raw emotion coming out of a breakup with “Rage”. I think we all can relate to the feeling of wanting to destroy everything and start things fresh. Madi seethes in a slow boil as she releases her anger through the lines, “Forgive and forget, fuck you, fuck that/ Pathological lies, does it makes sense?” This anger burns with a cool flame as Diaz sings these words through the descending melody of just her acoustic guitar and vocal accompaniment.
There is a whole lot of processing going on in the second track “Man In Me”. Diaz keeps the low hum of her electric guitar raw like the many emotions that she speaks on between her and her ex-partner. Madi told Under The Radar the following regarding the sentiment behind the song:
“… And I think that ‘Man In Me’ was a really big idea. And I didn’t even know what was happening for so long with us. I just knew that there was something bigger than me in the relationship that was surfacing. So what happened, happened!… ‘Man In Me’ is a very slow, visceral unpacking. It’s like when you leave the suitcase in the corner of your room — we all have for like a month — before you put away two things. I have two suitcases literally right now that I’m doing that with. So no wonder it took me nine months to write this one.”
You can see her at the crossroads of processing this new side of her partner. She’s unsure who she feel in love with, “Tell me now who’s lips I was kissing/ It’s all about who’s lips I was kissing/ The man in me and the woman in you.” This identity that she now is seeing is like another woman who she doesn’t know if she fell for or the male presenting exterior that Madi originally found. With this anger comes a lot of regret. You hear it in the second verse, “I’m not proud of kicking in your bathroom door/ Or screaming at you I don’t know you anymore… If thoughts could kill I’d never talk you down/ But I’d try and try to hold you still.” Diaz knows that her actions were equally if not worse in the eyes of her ex-partner. I think Madi does a wonderful job being raw and transparent both sonically and lyrically.
Diaz starts to enter the full mourning phase in the death of her relationship on “Crying In Public”. Madi’s acoustic guitar against this coming hum of synth and backing vocals gives such a raw edge to the emotions she feels. You feel as if you are trying to catch your breathe in this large space as Diaz’s more belted vocals cast the frustration in these tears she can not stifle. She talks of all the situations she could be in, either everyday activities or various distractions, where the hurt and depression sets in. As much as she tries to fight it, she finds herself breaking down , “I don’t wanna be cryin’ in public/ But here I am cryin’ in public/ I am strong and it’s stronger than I am right now/ Tryna keep it in but it’s comin’ out.”
The first track I heard on this record was her take on the Kesha co-written track “Resentment”. Having heard the original on Kesha’s High Road, the song takes on whole different identity under Madi’s hand. With only Diaz vocals and guitar to hold us through, the song comes as a silent anger. It almost feels like the deep cutting knife of a parent saying they’re not mad, just disappointed. You almost wish she’d yell about this building resentment between them.
“Think of Me” perfectly follows “Resentment” in the amount of disdain she feels towards her now wondering partner. Diaz shifts to a more raw rock sound. It acts as our release of this anger often slowly building up on the first four tracks. This resentment comes in harsh as she sings in the lines, “I hope you fuck her with your eyes closed/ Put the shame off with some Benzos/ Swallow the feeling while you walk home/ And think of me always.” The bite tears at the flesh not only from the sting of cheating, but the lack of confronting their issues head on and facing them.
Another of the most raw and personal moments on the record comes in with “Woman In My Heart”. Madi keeps the song very raw in the opening with a lo-fi sound. This progresses into a much crunchier alt rock sound as the song progresses. I love this progressive aggression that she has been building on with each track. Here she faces the truth of her partner’s truth identity. Here is where we can see that this revelation was not the true death nail in their relationship, “There’s a woman in my heart/ She only comes out in the dark/ I was willing to stay/ All my honor on the stake/ I’m still pulling out your love/ Little pieces coming up.”
“Nervous” really puts forth the hurt of love that still haunts you once the relationship has ended. Diaz told Under The Radar that the song took quite some time to take shape:
“I started it at my kitchen table. It was one of those days that I just was so sick of myself, sick of talking about the same thing over and over again. I was ready to turn some sort of page. I was really trying to jump start my battery and kind of wrote it pretty much — not start to finish — but it was very free flow. I got the idea down in two minutes and then it just sat there for six months and I didn’t touch it. Eventually, I finished it with my friend down the street — it was like when you’re sick of doing homework and you don’t want to finish the thing by yourself because it’s just boring.”
The song continues the alt rock sound that was present on the past two songs. Compared to the aggression prior, this song as a much more playful pop undertone. I could easily hear this playing on the radio due to its accessibility. Diaz shows a fractured state of mind as she both wants to cling to what’s left of her relationship while trying to heal and move on. This is her way of calling herself out for these unhealthy actions, “I know why I lie to myself (I lie to myself)/ I’m not really looking to get healthy/ I have so many perspectives/ I’m losing perspective/ I make me nervous.” I think the more upbeat take on this subject adds a needed point of light on this project.
“Forever” sees Madi fighting desperately to escape the hold the her past with her ex holds over her. She keeps this soundscape rather empty and vast through this delayed vocals, soft acoustic guitar, and melancholy strings. This frustration comes in the ghosts of their connection coming in unwanted into her mind, “Are you a time traveler/ What are you doing here/ How can you just come over/ And whеn will you disappear.” The sting really comes in from the realization that her ex’s promise of forever was toss out so carelessly to be shattered in front of her.
Diaz works through the ghost of their relationship on “History of a Feeling”. Madi’s words hit hard with that sting of pain and anxiety that comes with just the spark of a memory around someone who’s parting wasn’t clean. She keeps the song simple through the hushed tone of her electric guitar and gentle vocals. She paints the image of a woman trying to cut all ties with the emotions that come from thinking on the past, “I still get a tremor every time I face west/ Just when I think it’s gone I feel it in my chest again/ It doesn’t happen all the time and when it does it softly creeps in/ I’m livin’ in the history of a feeling.”
“New Person, Old Place” finally sees Madi moving on from the hurt and closing out this chapter in her life. Diaz told Under The Radar that this song was her way to make the steps towards closing those doors for herself:
“I live in a one-bedroom apartment by myself, in East Nashville. I’ve never lived in this apartment before. It’s creating or carving new pathways for yourself, I mean it’s therapy, therapy, therapy. Or Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary. You say it three times. It’ll appear. When I wrote “New Person, Old Place” I hadn’t gotten to that place yet, but I did believe that it was on the other side of this thing that I was going through. And I was kind of hoping that I was going to slingshot myself into a new future based off something that I was saying out loud. I was high on manifesting.”
Sonically, the rise and fall of the strings against her acoustic guitar takes me to the heartbreak of Beck’s Sea Change. The chorus speaks miles around the idea of letting go of the past in order to more forward, “What used to hurt doesn’t hurt anymore/ What used to work doesn’t work anymore/ And that’s just true, it’s not еven brave/ Can’t be a nеw person in an old place.” I think this song has the best songwriting on the album. It’s lush yet solemn sound allows you the space to make peace in such a beautiful way.
We end out this emotional journey on the sentiment of starting over anew on “Do It Now”. We end on the resonant hum of Diaz’s piano melody as while Andrew Sarlo provides backing vocals to this solemn yet optistic track. The song’s chorus is a challenge to her new partner to act know if he’s going to love her or leave her, “If you’re gonna love me, show me how/ If you’re gonna hurt me, do it now/ If I give you everything, will it freak you out?/ If you’re gonna love me, do it now.” She’d rather face the issue head on now instead of letting things play out the same way they did before. This is a lovely closer to this journey in heartbreak.
I was familiar with Madi’s prior work, having listened to her 2012 Plastic Moon. After listening to her latest album, I can clearly see why she had a publishing contract in the past. Diaz has a talent for rich emotive songwriting. Each track beautifully displays the hurt, resentment, loss, and depression surrounding the failing of a relationship. I respect her honesty and lucid point of view around her ex-partner’s mental state as she comes to terms with her gender identity. Although rather short in nature, I think the album never overstays its welcome at any point. I’m highly impressed with her comeback after 7 years. My thoughts on the record:
Loved it: “Man In Me”, “Crying In Public”, “Resentment”, “Woman In My Heart”, “Forever” & “New Person, Old Place”
Liked it: “Rage”, “Think of Me”, “Nervous”, “History of a Feeling” & “Do It Now”
Disliked it: None
My overall rating: 7.5 out of 10.
