‘Shiny Objects’ reflects Lia Menaker’s 10-year artistic growth

In 2016, Lia Menaker released her first full album, Animal Behavior. In early October, her second album, Shiny Objects, dropped and her progression as a songwriter is on full display.

 ”A lot of them were written in college,” she said of Animal Behavior‘s tracks. “I was an entirely different person for so many reasons.”

The world was entirely different, too, she said.

 ”I always feel like it’s interesting for me to explore some kind of parallel between what we see in our country just culturally and socially in my writing,” she said.

With Shiny Objects‘ release, Menaker’s sound and lyricism has expanded.

 ”I’ve been kind of calling it retro soul pop, because I feel like it has almost like a ’60s element or something,” she said.  ”Maybe this is like a boring answer, but I am so excited and motivated and inspired by so many different things, and it just kind of melds into that a lot of the time.”

She counts jazz renditions of musical theater numbers, Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, Joni Mitchell, Amy Winehouse, and St. Vincent among her inspirations.

“It’s hard to know like what creeps in there from what I’ve loved and listened to,” she said.

“Feed Me” from Shiny Objects is a step in a heavier direction and into the protest song sphere. But maybe not intentionally at a first.

 ”I started that song in a songwriting workshop I took by Meryl Garbus [of Tune-Yards],” she said “The prompt was around writing a hook, and she had talked about fertile phrases, which is this thing of a phrase or a sentence that just feels like some charged in some way to you, that feels alive.”

She wrote what became the song’s hook,  ”feed me a truth to believe in,” and knew it was the fertile phrase Garbus discussed. But she wasn’t sure how to use it.

It was after collaborating with her friend  Richard DeCicco and producer, who goes by Orange County Death March, that it all came together. His production introduced some heavier elements to the budding song and Menaker was inspired to pen the rest of her lyrics.

“At the time I was like, ‘”‘Oh my God, this was meant to be political,'” she said.  ”It’s hard for me to typically write a protest or political song because to me it’s always on the nose, it doesn’t hit me deeper in my cells.”

Menaker said the song isn’t a typical protest song you’d hear from your Bob Dylans, Pete Seegers, or even Jesse Welleses, however. Rather, it’s more akin to release of anger.

“I think I got to the point where being a mom and producing all these songs, I was like, ‘I’m just feeling like I need something to lift me into this a little bit,'” she said. “ I think we’re all feeling like you’re this boiling pot ready to burst.”

Overall, Shiny Objects is a showcase of Menaker’s voice—lyrically and vocally—despite her concerns the record wouldn’t sound cohesive.

Menaker is celebrating the release with a show Sunday at Johnny Brenda’s. She’s being joined by Kuf Knotz & Christine Elise and Brittany Ann Tranbaugh at the gig.

 ”I am so pumped for this show on Sunday,” she said. “I get to be a front woman for the first time because Eliot Garland is going to be on keys instead of me for most of it. There’ll be horns, there’ll be backup singers. It’s gonna be a really, really wonderful.”