Post-Break-Up-Male-Vulnerability in the Public Eye
In a world where break-ups often translate into tabloid fodder and bitter tracks, Role Model, a.k.a. Tucker Pillsbury, defies the norm with his sophomore album, Kansas Anymore. Personal heartache turned into a sonic folk-pop journey through an emotional labyrinth of his break-up with social media maven Emma Chamberlain, offering a mature exploration of love, loss, and personal growth.
Role Model, Kansas Anymore, 2024; Presley Ann/Getty Images
’Cause breaking up is hard to do… and is never nice either. Nevertheless, there’s an infinitesimal chance that this delicate process we may face in our lives may be turned into something musically beautiful and, why not, also educative. This is what I think Role Model, a.k.a. Tucker Pillsbury, managed to achieve in his sophomore album, Kansas Anymore.
After his previous bedroom-pop rapping past, the 27-year-old singer-songwriter from Maine has reconnected with his land's musical roots to give a glimpse of his self-loathing and of the premises and aftermath of his break-up with one of the most influential social media personalities, Emma Chamberlain. With these conditions, you would imagine that you had to go through the same old ugly talking and accusing that go about when we are forced to assist celebrity couples going their separate ways, but this isn’t really the case. Both of them have kept private the initial years of their relationship, letting the world officially know just at the beginning of 2023, just to break up near the end of 2023, but without giving any insight, and rightfully so. I will not lie. I have to thank Chamberlain’s directorial debut in one of Role Model’s music videos for making me aware of his music. I then must say that I decided to listen to the album after coming across the singles that anticipated it. I was ready to find myself in front of shallow post-break-up ugliness, but I instead found nothing but sincere and mature lyrics, pop-folk beats, maybe already heard but at least personally crafted.
These are the words I’d use if I had to describe the album in under 10 seconds. But if we want to get deeper, a whole set of stories are narrated through the album, not only about love and break-up but also about personal growth when in a couple and after, and the scariness of facing your own fears and doubts in a land where they cannot be at ease: Los Angeles. The album title, Kansas Anymore, is in fact a metaphor for Pillsbury’s homesickness and goldfish-out-of-the-bowl situation he lived while adapting to the celebrity scene in LA, which eventually led to the foresought fracture of his relationship with Chamberlain (which is ironic since there’s a high chance that many just like me might have discovered him through this connection).
Going back to the premises and aftermaths I mentioned earlier, the two narrative threads that divide the album are the heartbreak and post-heartbreak phases, with all the emotions and feelings that accompanied him in each. And I love me some nice little album about a cataclysmic heartbreak with a dichotomic structure! All of this so closely reminds me of Bruce Springsteen's 1987 Tunnel Of Love, not only for the structure and themes but also for the personal inspirational material that gave birth to the Grammy-winning album (Springsteen wrote the album in response to his equally public divorce with the American actress Julianne Philipps).
The albums are completely different from each other but shed light on how respectfully the end of two very public love stories in two different media eras have been musically faced. Though, if Springsteen managed to impersonate different characters through his lyrics, Pillsbury talks about no one but himself and lays the pillars of his mea culpa.
I also hinted at the personally crafted tunes because he took a seat on the Zach Sang Show, and talked about how his approach to songwriting has evolved since learning how to play the guitar (from Chamberlain’s father), meaning that he is now able to build musical ideas for his lyrics on his own, before counting on the help of different collaborators, starting from Ross MacDonald from the British band The 1975. Something he cherishes and refers to as a “full circle moment” because of how he used to make music in the first stages of his career when he was 17.
This naivety is perceptible but valuable. Catchy musical lines mark fairly simple song structures but mature and vulnerable lyrics are what really struck me and made me listen to a man’s reasons for his inconsiderate actions (and I’m never really keen on doing such things, so bravo).
