Emma Miao

Awash in luminescent blue-green smoke, Lyn Lapid lit up Brighton Music Hall on the Boston stop of her “to love in the 21st century the epilogue” tour. Both onstage and offstage, she explored universal themes of modern love, inviting her audience to join her, reflecting a commitment to not just singing about, but truly embodying love– through trust, energy, and dedication.

For Lapid, feeling deeply and seeing clearly are the greatest forms of love. Amidst the distractions of the modern music scene, I find her vulnerability blissfully refreshing. I wonder, though, if her ability to speak so clearly to her fans is a function of her relatively recent rise to fame. In three years, Lapid transformed from posting Youtube covers, to opening for Ricky Montgomery at the Brighton Music Hall, to headlining that same venue. Does authentic love transform with fame? Does fame corrupt the very love Lapid sings about? What can an artist do to preserve authenticity as their online presence grows?

Opening with her song “Pager,” Lapid launched into a setlist of old favorites and new tracks from her latest EP. Crowd favorite “Pick Your Brain” was a dreamy piece punctuated with a gentle drum kit backbeat, a pop ode dedicated to finding perfect understanding in another person. The lyrics, “I swear, I see the world inside your eyes / I wonder what you see in mine” echoed thematically as she sang “Like You Want Me To,” a candid exploration of not being able to reciprocate love in the way someone deserves. The evening also featured a nostalgic and touching cover of “When She Loved Me” from Toy Story, the song that initially propelled Lapid to fame. She mentioned how some fans initially thought the covered song was hers, which brought the audience back to her Youtube days with her ukelele in her bedroom with an invisible audience behind the camera.

One of the most resonant moments of the night was Lapid’s storytelling. While holding her ukelele, she shared her experience of being ghosted, leading into the song “Could’ve Been You.” This segment, underscored by the deep resonance of the bass, spoke to anyone who’s felt the silence of unrequited affection.

Lapid ensured that her audience never felt such unrequited affection, though. Throughout the concert, she threw items like shirts, drum sticks, and posters into the audience. After the concert, Lapid noticed that I posted photos of the event on social media, liking it and reposting it on her account. In the days after the concert, however, I wondered about Lapid’s love changing as her theoretical, digital audience materialized into the sold-out arena around me. These opportunities to feel seen 

 with the artist’s scale of popularity. At the same time, I relished in Lapid’s attention, lucky to revel in the light of a rapidly diminishing resource.

At the same time, “Could’ve Been You,” revealed a similar conflict in the artist-fan relationship. Lapid can’t maintain the same love she expresses for her fans as her audience grows more than she could personally address. In the song, Lapid sings “I swear you were all for me moments ago / But the only part of you here is your ghost.” How can Lapid maintain authentic, reciprocated love in a mass of unrecognizable faces? This is a question that every public figure has to contend with, but for Lapid it’s especially important, considering her music is mostly predicated on themes of authenticity.

For now, Lapid’s personal touches are here to stay. After singing “Fix,” an unreleased song, she revealed that the night was even more special because it was Kayla’s — her bassist’s — 21st birthday. She brought a cake onstage, and the audience sang happy birthday as Kayla blew out the candles. The concert then culminated in “My Little Island,” from her Outsider EP, a serene tribute to solitude and introspection, set against a backdrop of blue lights, encapsulating the intimate yet expansive nature of Lapid's music.

In a music industry—indeed in a world—of glossy silhouettes, songs about love and heartbreak can take on a half-hearted sheen of falsity. As she grows in popularity, Lapid will have to redefine what it means to love honestly and wholly, both as an artist and a human. I hope that for her, that means maintaining as much of this authenticity as she can even as her fanbase soars, daring her fans to feel vastly, to pour ourselves into what energizes us, and then, in turn, to love ourselves, in the 21st century.

Emma Miao

Emma Miao

Notes

Notes

What To Do With Love In The 21st Century