ROBYN OTTOLINI

                                                              "Five Years" 

                                                              Warner Music Nashville

With a platinum certification for “F-150,” a win in the Rising Star category at the 2021 CCMA Awards, and a highly praised single late last year with the insanely catchy “Busy,” Canada’s Robyn Ottolini has laid foundation for a breakthrough year in 2023 that could see her earning incredible new heights stateside as she continues to strongly impact her home country of Canada.

Swerving away from what we heard on the pop country induced “Busy,” and moving into a much moodier, darker, and more transparently laced reality, Ottolini starts off her 2023 with “Five Years.”

What’s your five-year plan?

This seemingly nonchalant, standard question is always asked in any job interview, but what is often overlooked is the amount of weight that it holds for the person you’re asking it to, and the triggers that it strikes within them.

Ottolini speaks straight from her own anxiety after being asked that very question as she weaves us through her own internal struggles, confessing that she’ll try to answer without lying as she then gut-punches through a chorus that expels the heaviness of her answer:

“In five years

I could be happy with a sh**ty apartment

Couple of friends with the same taste in wine

But a different taste in men

In five years

I could let myself fall in love

Have a family and consider myself a grown up

If worse comes to worse

I could be in heaven or hell

But in five years

I just hope I don’t hate myself”

But it’s during the bridge of the song that she adds a fire snap to her vocals as she frantically runs through a list of all the things that she hopes she doesn’t hate about herself in five years, while then twisting the songs final lines so that they place a much bolder emphasis on how the here and now can affect who you become as she slides away from only hoping she doesn’t hate herself, to instead asking the heartbreaking question of “what if I hate myself?”

The extremely different tone and overall vibe of “Five Years” is exactly why this song is so intriguing as it unexpectedly reveals a layer that allows Ottolini’s versatility to shine within a lyric that can heavily impact those who need to know they aren’t alone in their struggles.

(Review Written By: Jeffrey Kurtis)

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