Alessia Cara Opens Up About New Album 'The Pains of Growing'

Alessia Cara

Alessia Cara has done a lot of growing over the last couple of years. As she's made the transition form teenager to young adult, the Canadian-born singer/songwriter has certainly experienced The Pains of Growing, which is the title of her brand new album.

The Pains of Growing is Cara's second full-length LP and follows her 2015 debut album Know-It-All. The new record showcases 15 new songs, including singles like "Growing Pains" and "Trust My Lonely." 

Alessia recently performed some of her new music during her exclusive iHeartRadio Album Release Party in Los Angeles, where she also got emotional as she opened up about The Pains of Growing. She said, "Anybody's life kind of changes in three years no matter what ... and I just needed to write about it and this album, the whole process, has felt like something I needed to do for myself. You never stop growing and that whole concept is always going to be relevant."

Speaking of which, the album title certainly reflects on the themes of her new music. During an interview with iHeartRadio, Cara explains, "The title of my new album comes from the idea that everything that we go through in life, and all kinds of pain, are things that we can grow out of and grow from. So I called it the 'Pains of Growing' because yes, things can be painful and growing up can be hard. But it just means you're growing, which I think is a positive thing, and there's the silver lining in that."

As for how Alessia has grown over the last few years since releasing her debut album, she explains, "Over the last three years, I've grown from being a teenager to an adult, and [there are] many different things that come with that. Each song on this album is an aspect of growing and an aspect of the pains of growing. Whether it's like a nostalgic kind of pain or some things that I've gone through, or even letting go of pain and happiness as well; that's in there."

Alessia Cara - 'The Pains of Growing' Album Cover Art

The first song that Alessia shared from The Pains of Growing, was "Growing Pains," for which on the cover art (as well as the album cover art) she is wearing an oversized suit. Back in June, Cara explained during an earlier interview with iHeartRadio of the significance of her wardrobe choice, "I wanted the suit to almost be too big for me because I felt like I was trying to fit a role or fill a mold that I wasn't really ready for and that I was too little for."

The next song used to introduce Alessia's fans to her new album was "Trust My Lonely." The 22-year-old explained of the meaning behind the track, "'Trust My Lonely', to me, means letting go of anything toxic and anything negative. Whether that's a relationship, a friendship, negative feelings, voices of doubt, whether they're you're own voices of doubt or [from] other people. Just kinda giving them like a middle finger and being like, I'm okay on my own. And just trusting yourself and trusting being alone, because I think we tend to hold on to things that are toxic for us because we're afraid of being alone. People kinda tell us that being lonely is a bad thing, but I think a lot of us can be better and be happier when we just let those things go."

There were many songs that Alessia went back and forth with about whether or not to include on the album, especially one song in particular, because "it was too much." And although it does not appear on The Pains of Growing, she adds that fans may hear it one day. "Maybe on the next project or something when I'm a little bit farther away from it," she explains.

As for her favorite The Pains of Growing songs, they are all very important to Alessia, but she does call out one as being particularly close to her heart called "A Little More." She tells us, "It's really close to my heart, lyrically. I made that one in my basement and produced that one myself. So, it feels like the closest to me."