I Can Finally See
A certain song has had an absolute chokehold on my life over the last year and a half and I want to share. I have listened to All You Wanted by Michelle Branch at least 3–4 times a day and that doesn’t even count the amount of times I started the song over to hear the opening guitar chords again (Spotify needs 30 seconds for a stream so I know 404 plays is low). There is nooooo reason a 2000s faux angst alt-pop rock ballad about heart break should be living in my brain rent free 24/7 365 days of the year. But yet it does.
What do I like about this song?
Everything.
The song’s sweet-sounding melody never fails to get me to sing along and lives in my head rent free. Is it simple? Yes. Is it catchy? Yes. I have always been a fan of late 90s and early 2000s alternative pop music and the entire instrumental is very true of that era with its guitar lead and dramatic drums.
Oh and the chorus is just peak angsty/dramatic/pop catchiness — which plays into the song’s quality because its ironically entertaining. On top of that All You Wanted has my one of favorite hooks of all time even though it’s pretty basic at “And all you wanted was somebody who cares.” The hook meshes with the melody perfectly while carrying more weight than it ever should considering the nature of the song.
Truly this song has so much versatility for different aspects of my day to day life and I admire that. I listen to this song when I’m working out but I also lean on it when I want to get out of a mental funk.
I used to think I had a guilty pleasure for 2000s girlboss/alt/pop music but I slowly realized it’s one of my favorite genres as it’s affected my influence in music taste today (as most of my friends know my favorite artist is Charli XCX). All You Wanted by Michelle Branch easily is one of my favorite songs ever and I have no shame in sharing that.
The music video is oversaturated in 2000’s energy making it VERY amusing.
