Gen Z's Melancholy Maven

Gracie Abrams on her excellent debut, opening for Taylor, and how she feels about the nepobaby discourse

- WAISS ARAMESH

When the pandemic shut down the world in March 2020, millions of people had to find ways to cope with an abundance of time indoors. Some baked bread. Others took up pottery. And on one very-early Friday morning, singer-songwriter Gracie Abrams got high, dove deep into Taylor Swift’s discography, and fired off a tweet: “I know places by taylor swift makes me feel like I’m being hunted down in the purge.”

“That was one of like a dozen tweets explaining my feelings about her music in that state,” Abrams says, laughing, as I bring it up. (Other tweets sent in the spree suggest Abrams thinks Swift’s best song is “Innocent,” and “Mine” makes her crave overalls.)

Abrams, 23, will have dozens of chances this summer to see an artist who shaped her — but not as a fan. For 30 dates on Swift’s the Eras Tour, Abrams will open for her hero at stadiums across the country. “It feels like the most ridiculous master class known to man,” Abrams says. “I’m going to learn so much keeping my head down and listening and watching her do what she was put here to do.”

Abrams is Gen Z’s melancholy maven and one of pop’s buzziest young artists at the moment. Her debut, Good Riddance, shows serious command of autobiographical songwriting. She’s not the only pop star writing heartbreak confessionals in her bedroom, but she translates the guilt and doubt of young love turned sour in her music better than most of her peers. “I miss you, I’m sorry,” a breakout hit that has garnered more than 100 million streams on Spotify, is both a goodbye to a lover and an argument for the opposite: “You said, ‘Forever,’ in the end I fought it/Please be honest/Are we better for it?”