Every Bad

Editors’ Notes “I am always trying to learn, grow, and get better, and making this album was a huge learning curve in so many ways,” Porridge Radio’s vocalist, songwriter, and guitarist Dana Margolin tells Apple Music about making their second album Every Bad. “I think we learned a lot from the first album, so this is much better produced. We were able to be patient with it, work on it and make it sound the way we wanted.” The Brighton-based group—Margolin, bassist Maddie Ryall, keyboardist Georgie Stott, and drummer Sam Yardley—convey the angst and energy of youth on the record, burnished by grunge-inspired fuzzy, distorted guitars. Margolin, whose songwriting heroes include Cat Power, Neil Young, and Modest Mouse, anchors it all with stark lyrics— from the opening line “I’m bored to death/Let’s argue” to “I’m a sinking ship/There’s nothing inside” on closer “Homecoming Song.” “The album title ‘Every Bad’ is like a fragment of a sentence, and it has the potential to go in different directions and become different things,” she explains. “That, I think, is something I was focusing on a lot, the possibility that something could be positive or negative.” Below Margolin guides us through that uncertainty, track by track.

Born Confused
“That’s one of the oldest songs on the record. It’s quite an intense song, when we play it live. It captures the feeling of frustration and trying to figure things out, which appears across the whole album.”

Sweet
“I was listening to a lot of Lorde’s Melodrama when I wrote this. When we played this as a band, it all came together really fast and became this really dramatic and intense loud and quiet song. It kind of comes out of this lighthearted place in me, but I think it ends with something quite dark and dramatic, which I enjoy.”

Don’t Ask Me Twice
“‘This is a song about suddenly noticing where you are and being surprised to find yourself in your own body in that place. It always feels like it’s all going to fall apart at any moment, but it keeps pulling back and falling into place again.”

Long
“This was written very collaboratively for us as a band compared to our other songs, and it grew quite organically and quickly. Lyrically, I wanted to focus on a feeling of total exasperation and frustration, in the midst of something really fun and exciting.”

Nephews
“This is another really old one. I really like how it's grown and changed over the years. I remember bringing the songs to Sam and him playing drums, and he instantly started playing a drumbeat that kind of sounded like it's crashing. We've played it for years [live] and it's evolved a lot.”

Pop Song
“I set out to write a pop song, and I think it's funny because it's not the pop song I was trying to write—but I really love it, and I feel like it was a song that kind of taught me a lot about patience and writing. I really enjoy how slow and careful it is; it feels like quite a gentle moment in the album.”

Give/Take
“I think ‘Give/Take’ is about learning how to know what you need, and about guilt and longing. It came out of a very stripped-back two-chord idea, and ended up being driven forward by and structured around the bassline.”

Lilac
“I was thinking about love and control and the things out of my control, and how fragile and incapable depression can make you feel. It’s a song about finding some hope and some future within that.”

Circling
“I really love ‘Circling.’ A lot of the songs on Every Bad are centered around the sea. I tried to follow the feeling of the flow of waves, and how they keep coming in endlessly, washing everything away without judgment, and then bringing it back again.”

(Something)
“‘(Something)’ is an extension of 'Circling,' and originally it was supposed to be a backing vocal in 'Circling,' but then when we tried to put it in, we thought, ‘This doesn't really make sense in the song,’ because there's a lot going on. I think it stands out from the rest of the songs on the album, because of the different way we wrote and made it.”

Homecoming Song
“I like how ‘Homecoming Song’ ends the album and feels like it's kind of pointing in a direction of something else. It was written around the same time as 'Pop Song,' like in the same few days. They ended up very different, but originally they were part of the same thing. It kind of feels like a part one and a part two in a lot of ways for me.”