The Pains of Growing

by Alessia Cara

Overview

The Pains of Growing was released three and a half years after Alessia Cara's first single began a liftoff that led to platinum certifications, multiple Juno awards, and a Grammy. As accolades piled up, Cara experienced a complete between-albums profile maximization cycle, highlighted by featured appearances on songs by Zedd and Logic and a well-synchronized Disney connection with the Lin-Manuel Miranda-written theme for Moana. Cara's second album catches her at a point where she's simultaneously an emergent singer/songwriter and a bankable collaborative pop star. The Pains of Growing embraces the duality for better and worse. Having co-written everything on first album Know-It-All, Cara wrote an even higher percentage of the material here, including a few songs on her own. She also produces one of the finer ones, the primarily acoustic "I Don't Want To," a bittersweet, conflicted ballad. Pop & Oak co-produced over half of the debut and contribute to several of this album's most appealing songs, from the faintly Jade-echoing "Growing Pains" -- in the relatable anthem vein of "Scars to Your Beautiful" -- to "Trust My Lonely," where Cara sails off with some sweetly miniaturized digi-dub. Apart from a romantically content soul throwback with No I.D., through which Cara displays the increased richness in her voice, the album's remainder employs assorted hit-angling producers connected by pop success with young women. The Pains of Growing is consequently more fragmented and less consistent than Know-It-All, but Cara makes the best of it, generally writing in a slightly wiser and sharper manner from the same introverted homebody perspective. Even the "isolated life on the road" number "Wherever I Live," the album's lone post-fame moment, sounds like it was written by the person who made "Four Pink Walls." ~ Andy Kellman

Product Details

Release Date:	01/18/2019
Label:	Imports
UPC:	0602577260582
Rank:	60455

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Alessia Cara   Primary Artist,Vocals
Patrick Warren   Strings
Zac Rae   Bass,Strings,Keyboards
Rick Nowels   Piano,Pizzicato
Pop   Vocals,Keyboards
Steve Wyreman   Bass,Piano,Guitar
Dean Reid   Drums
Jon Levine   Bass,Keyboards
Nate Mercereau   Guitar,Trumpet,French Horn
Brian Griffin   Drums
Oak   Vocals,Keyboards
Jon Sosin   Guitar
Brandyn Porter   Guitar (Acoustic)
Trevor Brown   Drums,Guitar
Bianca McC   Violin
Dylan Brady   Bass,Percussion

Technical Credits

Tony Perez   Executive Producer
Thabiso Nkhereanye   A&R
Chris Gehringer   Mastering
Leesa D. Brunson   A&R
Rick Nowels   Composer,Producer
Pop   Producer,Programming,Instrumentation
George Seara   Mixing
Kieron Menzies   Engineer
Manny Marroquin   Mixing
Ernest Wilson   Composer
Jim Caruana   Engineer
Jimmy Douglass   Mixing
Matt Green   Mixing
Inaam Haq   Engineer
Steve Wyreman   Composer,Producer
Dean Reid   Engineer,Producer,Drum Programming
Warren Felder   Composer,Engineer,Programming
Jon Levine   Producer,Drum Programming
Matt Anthony   Engineer
William Simmons   Composer
Eric Frederic   Composer
Stephen Feigenbaum   String Arrangements
Nate Mercereau   Composer,Producer
Ryan Reault   Assistant Engineer
Andrew Wansel   Composer
Kaleb Rollins   Composer
Andy Proctor   Package Production
Stephen Koszler   Engineer
Oak   Producer,Programming,Instrumentation
Trevor Yasuda   Engineer
Ricky Reed   Producer,Instrumentation
Casey Cuayo   Assistant Engineer
Alessia Caracciolo   Composer
Brittany Mansfield   A&R
Alessia Cara   Engineer,Lyricist,Producer,Instrumentation,Executive Producer
Ethan Shumaker   Engineer
Korinne Perez   A&R
Robert "Robeo" Eleazer   Executive Producer
Ashley Pawlak   Package Design
Marc Anthony Soto   Composer
Zaire Koalo   Producer,Programming,Instrumentation,Drum Programming
Trevor Brown   Composer,Producer,Programming,Instrumentation
James McCloud   Photography Director
Keith Sorrells   Assistant Engineer
Chris Rockwell   Engineer
Liza Corsey   A&R
Dylan Brady   Effects