''CollXtion II'' (pronounced "Collection Two") is the first studio album by the Canadian singer-songwriter
Allie X
Alexandra Ashley Hughes (born 31 July 1985), known by her stage name Allie X, is a Canadian singer, songwriter, and visual artist. She began her career as an indie pop artist in Toronto in the mid-2000s, playing with local bands and writing and ...
, released on 9 June 2017,
following her 2015
extended play
An extended play record, usually referred to as an EP, is a musical recording that contains more tracks than a single but fewer than an album or LP record. , ''
CollXtion I
''CollXtion I'' (pronounced "Collection One") is the debut extended play by the Canadian singer-songwriter Allie X, released physically on 7 April 2015 with a short sell cycle. It is her first record released under the name Allie X. The album was i ...
''.
''CollXtion II'' is the second of a planned five CollXtions, following ''CollXtion I'', each being a unique
multimedia
Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to tradition ...
experience that will include
GIF
The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; or , see pronunciation) is a bitmap image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released on 15 June 1987. ...
s (particularly called "X Visuals"), which are featured in her
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
videos, a comic detailing an abstract autobiography, and
song stems to allow fans to make their own creations.
Background
''CollXtion II'' had been teased by Allie X since the original release of ''CollXtion I''. One of the first statements mentioning the album was made on Twitter, following the release of the song "Never Enough", which fans assumed would be the lead single. On 3 February 2016, the song "Old Habits Die Hard" was released, originally as a non-album single available for free download, but was later included in the album's tracklist, as Allie X had promised to include the song once it hit 1 million plays on
Spotify
Spotify (; ) is a proprietary Swedish audio streaming and media services provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. It is one of the largest music streaming service providers, with over 456 million monthly active us ...
. During a question and answer session on social media site
Tumblr
Tumblr (stylized as tumblr; pronounced "tumbler") is an American microblogging and social networking website founded by David Karp in 2007 and currently owned by Automattic. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content to a sho ...
, Allie X stated that the overall theme for ''CollXtion II'' would be "longing and being lost".
On 13 May 2016, after the release of "Too Much to Dream", Allie X announced the project ''CollXtion II: Ʉnsolved'', which saw her release a collection of demos and songs on Spotify over the course of the summer, in order to shortlist the songs her fans wanted to see on ''CollXtion II''. The songs released through the project were "Too Much to Dream", "Purge", "All the Rage", "Casanova", "That's So Us", "Misbelieving" and "Alexandra" along with the non-album single "Old Habits Die Hard". Out of these, only "Old Habits Die Hard", "Casanova" and "That's So Us" were remastered and included on the album's final track list.
The project officially ended on 6 November 2016.
Composition
The album opens with "Paper Love", a
mid-tempo
In musical terminology, tempo (Italian, 'time'; plural ''tempos'', or ''tempi'' from the Italian plural) is the speed or pace of a given piece. In classical music, tempo is typically indicated with an instruction at the start of a piece (often ...
synth-pop
Synth-pop (short for synthesizer pop; also called techno-pop; ) is a subgenre of new wave music that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s ...
song. Allie X stated that the reason behind the song being the first track on the album is because she felt as if it was a great introduction. "It feels like the beginning of something exciting," she stated in a video released on YouTube, in which she breaks down the creation of "Paper Love".
"Paper Love" is lyrically about a lover, who is perceived as the right one, but ends up being not the person they once seemed to be, yet the love towards them doesn't want to die.
"
Paper Love' is aboutwhen you find yourself getting into
romantic situationthat you know will rip you up and you do it anyway," Allie X said about the single. "
he term
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
'paper love'
eansthe kind of love that is too fragile and violent to work but still feels smooth and sexy and sharp and you can't help going forward with it. Like, 'Watch my heart turn to pulp!' It's like knowing
situationis going to hurt so good."
The song includes a
drop, built around a guitar riff and a whistle tone. "When I started to make a demo around the riff, I really started to hear a more modern
ercussion the kind of
dancehall
Dancehall is a genre of Jamaican popular music that originated in the late 1970s. Initially, dancehall was a more sparse version of reggae than the roots style, which had dominated much of the 1970s.Barrow, Steve & Dalton, Peter (2004) "The Rou ...
thing that's happening a lot in music," she said about the composition of the track. "I really liked the idea of having a drop, I've never really done a proper drop in any of my songs before."
Allie X describes the album's tracks as representing pieces of her. "Whether it'd be a dream, a fantasy or my interpretation of reality," she said about the tracks. "Paper Love" and many of the other songs are about that part of myself that is kind of impulsive and self-destructive, and the kind of guys I dated for a while. I know that now that I'm older a lot of that I've grown out of, but other parts I haven't
rown out ofso much. It definitely is a piece of the me that I am now."
Release and promotion
On 23 February 2017, Allie X announced that the album would be released on 9 June 2017.
She also stated she would be embarking on a tour, preceding the album's official release. Dates were announced in New York City, Toronto, Chicago, Los Angeles and London.
Due to popular demand from fans, she later added Paris and Milan to the roster. Before the announcement of the release date, Allie X opened a ''CollXtion II'' hotline, which would play snippets of certain songs on the album to anyone who called. The first snippet played was "Paper Love", followed by "Need You", "True Love Is Violent" and "Simon Says".
Singles
"Old Habits Die Hard" was released as the lead single on February 6, 2016. It was originally never intended to act as the lead single and would instead be a standalone single that wouldn't be included on the ''CollXtion II: Ʉnsolved'' tracklist, but after the release of ''CollXtion II: Ʉnsolved'', it was released as the lead single of ''CollXtion II''. Which meant that “Old Habits Die Hard” along with "That's So Us" and “Casanova” were the only songs that were remastered, with all three having their original versions and album reworked versions being released as the first, second and fifth singles off of ''CollXtion II''. Upon the release, it received positive reviews from critics.
"That's So Us" was released on September 16, 2016 as the second single. It was met with positive reviews upon release. Originally included on ''CollXtion II: Ʉnsolved'' along with "Casanova", both were later remastered and released as official singles off of ''CollXtion II''.
"Paper Love" was the album's third single, which was released digitally on 28 April 2017.
Avery Stone from
Noisey
''Vice'' (stylized in all caps) is a Canadian-American magazine focused on lifestyle, arts, culture, and news/politics. Founded in 1994 in Montreal as an alternative punk magazine, the founders later launched the youth media company Vice Media, ...
gave the track a favourable review, describing Allie X as "sugary-voiced", saying she doesn't "dwell on it". "Instead, the track surges forward with a whistling hook over a slinky, swaggering guitar riff—and you want more. The song echoes the situation—you're right back where you started."
"Need You" was released as the forth single from the album on 26 May 2017.
The song includes the guest collaboration of
Michigan
Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...
-based band Valley Girl. It was launched as instant grat with the pre-order of the album on May 26.
The finalized version of "Casanova" was packaged together with pre-orders of the album, which began on 23 February 2017 and was widely misreported as the album's lead single.
It was later released as the fifth official single from the album, and a new version featuring American singer
Vérité
Kelsey Regina Byrne (born May 6, 1990), known professionally as Vérité (stylized as VÉRITÉ), is an American singer and songwriter based in Brooklyn, New York City. Her first single "Strange Enough" was self-released in July 2014, reaching n ...
was later released.
A piano demo was included on the set of ''CollXtion II: Ʉnsolved'' along with "That's So Us" but both were remastered and released as official singles off of ''CollXtion II'' along with "Old Habits Die Hard" after the release of ''CollXtion II: Ʉnsolved''.
Track listing
Notes
* signifies a co-
producer
* signifies an additional producer
* signifies a vocal producer
References
{{Authority control
2017 albums
Allie X albums
Bubblegum pop albums
Sequel albums