“Instrumental music just became part of my artistic makeup, my genetic makeup... The [COVID-19] pandemic happened and I, like so many of us, was just at a loss for words. I didn’t know how I felt about anything, so making more instrumental music felt like the right thing for me to do, rather than force my way through words.”
—Margaret on deciding to write instrumental music after regaining her singing voice.[2]
Romantic Piano is the third full-length studio album by American pianist Gia Margaret, released in 2023.
Reception
According to the review aggregator Metacritic, Romantic Piano received "universal acclaim" based on a weighted average score of 85 out of 100 from seven critic scores.[3]Clash Music's Rae Niwa called this release "an experience of delicate beauty" that "seizes the undercurrents of our being to remember we are love" and scored this album an 8 out of 10.[4] Critics from NPR's All Songs Considered included this among the five best albums of the week.[5] In Paste, Matt Mitchell rated this album an 8.7 out of 10 for being Margaret's "best and brightest endeavor yet" that during its runtime "morphs into the opus of someone whose talents and vision could give a crack of lightning a run for its money".[6] Andy Cush of Pitchfork Media rated this album a 7.8 out of 10, stating that the album "has far more personality and strangeness than its almost aggressively generic title suggests" and praising the songwriting variety.[7] Writing for PopMatters, Christopher J. Lee gave Romantic Piano a 9 out of 10, commenting that "Margaret has perfected her voice" and that the music "stirs reverie and subjective free association".[1]
Editors at The Fader chose this as the 45th best album of the year.[8]
