Gracie Abrams - Minor

Before the arenas and the chart runs, there was Minor. Released in July 2020, Gracie Abrams' debut EP is seven songs of voice memos turned into finished records, and it is still the purest distillation of what she does. Most of it was written and demoed alone, then finished with producer Joel Little, and the seams are left showing on purpose.

"I Miss You, I'm Sorry" became the track that broke her, a two and a half minute apology that spread through streaming and social platforms and has since been certified multiple times platinum. But the rest of the EP holds up just as well. "21" is a birthday song for someone who is not there. "Under / Over" works a single circling guitar figure into something quietly devastating. "Minor" closes things out sounding like it was recorded at three in the morning, because it more or less was.

This is the record that made Abrams a name among people who pay attention to what young songwriters are doing, and it earned her early tour slots with Olivia Rodrigo and Taylor Swift long before she was filling rooms of her own.