Don’t panic just yet—this is all completely normal. See, Cassadee Pope has always been beholden to a good trend, as you might expect from someone whose prime conduit to success was The Voice. When Frame By Frame arrived in the wake of Taylor Swift’s Speak Now, it was promptly engulfed by that album’s shadow; similarly, morphing around pop-country’s marketable mid-2010s wave on stages produced likewise results. Even pre-dating that, her band Hey Monday couldn’t have felt more like the pop-punk of its time in 2008. For full context, it was the perfect sliver of crossover between Warped Tour being in full swing and Paramore releasing Riot! just a year prior, when gambiting your way to take advantage of either (or preferably both) was all the rage.
With that in mind, though, Pope’s precedent (bizarrely) leaves her as one of the more qualified names to jump into 2020s pop-punk. It’s not timely or anything, when the wellspring is visibly close to running dry, but it’s more forgivable. Compounding that is how this isn’t the same harsh gearshift as so, so many others. 2021’s Thrive actually sought to reignite the spark with Pope’s pop-rock roots; whether through genuine desire or simple prescience of what was to come is immaterial, because it generally worked. There isn’t the same dread when going into Hereditary of an artist making a fool of themselves, or dumbing down and washing out what’s already designed to be the most palatable form of alternative music possible. It’s also possible for that to be true and valid while the album itself is far from a game-changer, but pie-in-the-sky thinking like that doesn’t hold in pop-punk anymore. It’s a Cassadee Pope album in 2024—take what praise you can get.
In any case, it’s an immediate positive that Hereditary sounds as competent and complete as it does. At no point does Pope settle for threadbare, plastic guitars or clicking trap space-fillers; this is the proper stuff. What’s more, it’s the proper stuff without having to compromise its modernity. You get those cues from the acts being emulated, in rather blatant fashion. Fit Eye Contact anywhere on Pale Waves’ Unwanted and it’d be seamless; elsewhere, the echoes of Olivia Rodrigo’s ragged outbursts of angst are all over the title track.
Mostly though, Hereditary is gunning hard and fast for Against The Current’s particular design space. And you know what? That’s perfectly fine. Once upon a time, there would’ve been some serious umbrage taken, as one of the main offenders for whom ‘punk’ in pop-punk was viewed as just a suggestion, but the genre has been scratched and flayed in such a way that their merits shine more brightly. That handily maps onto Pope, with a shriller voice uncannily similar to Chrissy Costanza’s and the know-how to crank out some great performances from it. It’s frankly incredible that sounding invested in your work is now a point of commend, but People That I Love Leave and Secret are the polar opposites to dead-eyed pop-punk clunkers without even a recollection of a pulse. More so than just about any of them, Pope actually conveys a prior knowledge of how to do this.
Not enough to avoid the nasty snags abundant in the contemporary style, mind. If their presence proves anything, it’s how Pope is far better equipped when staying in her lane, because the lower knells of guitar and substandard rap verse from Daisha McBride on I Died gel with her in the slightest. There’s also Almost There, where attempts to espouse kinkiness and sexual ferocity are woefully misplaced. That’s not a mode that Pope can even stretch herself into, when her voice is still so buoyant and girlish and brimming with natural light. Compared to detached hypebeasts or doe-eyed e-girls, Pope trying to follow suit while retaining a purity of spirit is where Hereditary really begins to sag. When what you’re most comfortable at is demonstrably better, why even bother stooping?
Now, those being isolated instances rather than the bedrock of the brand is far less sinful, and it’s invariably good that Pope as a more expressive, earnest performer is what takes her farthest. And for a set of generally off-the-shelf love and heartbreak songs, that can be enough. Rom Coms, for instance, has a premise that can be entirely intuited from its title, but a fluffy execution dialling back into Pope’s pop-country side keeps it skipping along nicely. Meanwhile, Ever Since The World Ended—similarly spelled out in name—makes keen work from some dramatic swell and shifts, and Underøath’s Aaron Gillespie being shockingly game to belt for the duet. For something with a few more knots, Three Of Us comes closest as an ultimatum to Pope’s partner that it’s either her or his drug habit, though the conviction across the board means deeper, piercing themes aren’t a prerequisite to carry all this.
Honestly though, it’s just nice to have one of these that’s good for a change. As said earlier, Pope is not rescuing things by herself, but at least she’s putting in a concerted effort, and not just abandoning ship when the TikTok views are down. And when you’ve got someone who obviously cares about the music she’s making—would you believe it?!—it turns out well. It’s just a shame Hereditary is coming out now, in the clear dying throes of a scene that, had it been released earlier, probably wouldn’t have known what to do with it anyway. At least that means the bottleneck is less clogged for Pope, perhaps allowing for an honest-to-goodness effort in pop-rock to get some air. And hey, there are still Hey Monday reunions planned into 2025—maybe there’s more to this than just grabbing the wave on its way past. That would certainly be nice.
For fans of: Against The Current, Hey Monday, Olivia Rodrigo
‘Hereditary’ by Cassadee Pope is released on 12th July on Alive Music.
Words by Luke Nuttall
