Being young in 2021 is hard enough without also being anointed the voice of your generation. However, listening to her debut album, Collapsed in Sunbeams, you can understand why Arlo Parks has been burdened with that weighty title. This bookish 20-year-old from Hammersmith, west London, has a very natural way of capturing, through descriptive lyrics set against a breezy mix of jazzy soul and languid indie pop, the simple realities of growing up, feeling lonely and just generally trying to work out where you fit in the world.
On top of that Parks’s quiet, thoughtful music chimes with our unexpected period of stillness. She was one of the only people to play Glastonbury 2020 — before an audience of cows, a TV crew and
