Alessia Cara is at a juncture of her career that few artists reach. The Canadian singer-songwriter supernova is on the other side of the first decade of her career, a decade which has borne plenty of successful records both critically and commercially, while catapulting herself to the upper echelons of the music industry. With a rise like that, though, it’s fair to wonder how such fame and success affects one’s artistry; moreover, the state of the connection an artist like Cara has to the initial motivations and love of craft that prompted her to embark on this quest. Early career highs can feel precarious, especially when you come from humble beginnings like Cara did, and the pursuit of consistent success can come with a subliminal deviation from what drew you to do what you’re passionate about in the first place. At that emotional fever pitch, then, it can feel like there’s only one path to the top of the mountain—obsession. 

Love or Lack Thereof, Cara’s latest album, addresses this meteoric journey as she presents highly-personalized live jazz reimaginings of her earlier hits while also flexing the perks of her stardom by way of landing collaborations with icons Nelly Furtado and Norah Jones, the latter of whom features on the record’s only brand new song. Getting to the level Cara is at is a complicated thing. No doubt, it takes an immense amount of hard work and dedication. That sort of daunting prospect can sharpen feelings of insecurity and imposter syndrome to a point wherein progress doesn’t feel like promise, but rather a mirage you’re all too conscious of. 

Obsession might power you through to the mountaintop, but it is exceptionally rare that early in their career, artists are able to define a peak that could actually grant them satisfaction. And so the path is endless. You become more and more willing to part with the version of yourself that existed before you set foot on the path. This self-desertion isn’t always dramatic, it can be as simple as the prospect of adding more people to the room you operate in─both literally and metaphorically. On one hand, having the use of ears and voices that aren’t yours is something that’s useful as you evolve your skillset and learn to trust that your work is bigger and better than you think. On the other hand—the hand the industry conceals—it can also mean diluting yourself to an extent that leaves you questioning who it truly is you’re seeing in the mirror, or who you’re truly listening to on the radio when your song comes on.

Nevertheless, Cara’s trajectory – and now the work that comprises Love or Lack Thereof – paints a picture of an artist who has had a healthy reckoning with this entire decade-long cycle. Her previous album, Love & Hyperbole, draws an interesting comparison. While both the original and deluxe editions of Love & Hyperbole have two versions of Cara professionally photographed and collated in a way that makes her look like she is mirroring herself, Love or Lack Thereof is an earnest sketch that Cara herself drew.

The music on Love or Lack Thereof furthers this intimacy. The choice to re-record songs from earlier in her discography is telling of the inflection point that she’s navigating at this juncture. The first instinct of this sort of new-found cadence is to look backwards, before looking ahead. And to choose jazz as the genre-stage for this retrospective, is a narrative stroke of genius. Beyond the fact that Cara has a vocal range that lends itself to jazz, is the nature of this genre as one that is inherently collaborative, unfiltered, and emotionally responsive. It is capable of blending delicate curation with spontaneity; or blending the hard-earned vistas of an obsessive climb to the top of the charts, with the earthly warmth of humble beginnings. In that sense, Love or Lack Thereof represents Cara both at her most refined and at her most vulnerable. 

Cara’s discography varies in styles and substance, but the throughline between all the tracks she has reimagined on Love or Lack Thereof is the theme of love, as the title suggests. Not just the romanticised love that singers want you to swoon for as you listen, but all that comes with love: the yearning and suffering of seeking, the reinvention and interrogation of your soul that self-love prompts, the grief that comes from having experienced love or, well, lack thereof. 

The album also reflects what it’s like to look back on love. What may have once been a torrid love affair or an incomprehensible, heavy feeling of grief that clouded the mind can, in retrospect, be reconstructed in order for us to see that time, event, or sensation for what it really was in the grand scheme of life. By that logic, the ideation, production, and release of Love or Lack Thereof can be viewed as an exercise in love itself; in making this album, Alessia Cara is loving herself for who she is now and who she was when she made the original versions of the songs on this tracklist.