Fire's Chill Pick - January 2025

 Hey guys. It’s Fire from Fire’s Flaming Hot Takes and I’m trying something (sorta) new. Back in August of 2021, I tried a type of article called “Friday’s Chill Pick”, where the idea was every Friday I would talk about a song that I wanted to put y’all onto or one that I had some thoughts I wanted to get out. The problem was that doing this every Friday consistently led me to getting burned out because if I put myself on too consistent of a schedule, it eventually feels more like it’s an obligation for me to do rather than something that truly comes from a place of interest (it’s why to this day I still am not on any schedule to post these articles), which led me to ultimately axe the whole thing in November of that year. However, I’ll admit that as of late I’ve kinda been missing doing this. But I knew that I’d have to change up the style of this so I didn’t get bored of it again, especially considering I’m not the high schooler I was when I started blogging, I’m in a vastly different place in life now. So, instead of “Friday’s Chill Pick”, meet “Fire’s Chill Pick”!! How this’ll work is that every month on the last Friday of the month, I’ll talk about a song that I really want to talk about (mostly it’ll be songs I really like/love, but I may occasionally talk about a song I really dislike or have complicated thoughts on here as well lol). This way, it keeps the spirit of “Friday’s Chill Pick” intact without forcing me to abide by a stingy schedule. So without further ado, let's see what the chill pick this month is!!

Olivia Ridgely - Blu

Release: March 29, 2024

Genre: Folk pop, singer-songwriter

You probably don’t recognize Olivia Ridgely by name. But OG readers may recall her when I say that she used to be known as Claire Ridgely, who was actually featured in my very first Friday’s Chill Pick article with her song “All I Ever Wanted” (a song I still really love to this day). No, I don’t know why she changed her name either (first she changed it from Claire Ridgely to Ridgely and now again to Olivia Ridgely, girl do you hate Last.fm users?) but in January 2021, she released her debut EP Flowers For A Friend and...outside of that and some random features on EDM songs it was complete crickets from her until March of last year, when she dropped “Blu”, the A-side to “Blu/Lucky”. And let me just say, this song was in my top 10 on my Spotify Wrapped, so I think that should give you a general idea of what I think of this track haha. But yeah, this was one of my favorite songs of 2024. It’s a track that absolutely hits at the right time in the autumn watching the colorful trees and the blue skies (I know, I may have chosen to talk about this song too late for the right environment to really hit for y’all, sowwy). It’s a straightforward love song where the guitar instrumentation feels so inviting and warm and Olivia Ridgely can really sell the lovestruck tone of the song, you can practically feel her love for her partner on the line “hey pumpkin, say something”. In other words, it’s an absolutely incredible song and if y’all are willing to wait until the trees change colors to play this song, then this will really hit. I give this a 9/10, absolutely underrated gem and Olivia Ridgely, where is the next album/EP? You have this song now, it can be an autumn-type album, it’ll be cute!!