Grade: 3.0/5.0
It’d be unfair to pigeonhole Maya Hawke to her celebrated acting career (Netflix’s “Stranger Things”) or lose her in the hefty shadows of her celebrity parents (Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman) — but both feature in her latest single, “Missing Out,” released Feb 14. The song’s music video faintly gestures at the hit Netflix show, and she’s not hiding the undeniable influence and access of her parents’ spotlight (“I was born with my foot in the door”).
Cutting away her other artistic success, she’s a brightly undersung songwriter and lyricist. Since the quarantine release of her debut Blush, followed by her sophomore album Moss (featuring the viral song, “Therese”), her music has cleared a clean perch to sit with — reflective and tenderly written. If you think all her outward critical success ends in contentment, Hawke disagrees. Even with her career and “television salary,” she’s conscious of what she’s sacrificed.
Her third and newest album, Chaos Angel, is set to debut May 31. Until then, her latest single shares the drawbacks of what might look like gold-star success. With concise and unafraid lyrics, Hawke’s ready to cut to her narrative, and she carves with her sincerity. “She says I might be a genius/ Well, she could be a model/ Didn’t think I’d get in, so I didn’t apply.”
Following in her mother and grandmother’s trajectory, Hawke has modeled for some big names in the fashion industry (e.g., Vogue, AllSaints, Calvin Klein). Acknowledging expectations that discouraged other ambitions, the song attempts to work through the tangles of a world that praises women for their watchability. But Hawke’s music undoes a lot of the outwardness in her modeling and acting. This time, she wants to be heard, carefully dispensing thoughts the camera hides.
Musically, the song is pretty simple. Steady drumming and some faintly plucked guitar rise for the repeated chorus (“missin’ out missin’ out missin’ out”). But Hawke’s lyrics are truthful; sometimes, almost spoken vocals carry the project.
The track is stripped back and candid. Some of what she’s missing out on is her chance to showcase her internal world. Having sidestepped college for her acting career, she’s left “[buying] booze for the Ivy League” (her brother goes to Brown), which isn’t as glamorous as it sounds (“they think they look up to me, ha”).
Even the music video is fixated on Hawke’s awareness of what her life looks like to others. In it, she’s kidnapped from her bed and duct-taped to a chair. Then there’s a metal cap on her head, complete with rainbow wires hooked to her brain, a la “Stranger Things.”
Facing a few dozen static TV screens (and with the power of AI), suddenly, it’s her face on every screen, uncannily superimposed over clips of actors, dancers and models. She plastically smiles, and then seven different exaggerated faces suddenly appear beside her. It’s herself, forced to look at her own image — briefly inhabiting the life of every actress.
Her music is a space for her to express introspective depth, sharing a side of herself seldom glimpsed in her TV and modeling careers. With unrestrained lyrics, the song peers into Hawke’s internal world. Although it slightly loses its musical footing with unambitious instrumentation, the track recovers with its laid-back intimacy.