Casey Ahern releases “Didn’t Even Get a Goodbye”

Casey Ahern has been winning over a lot of fans from across the pop music spectrum in the last two years that have gone by since the arrival of her official debut single. From country to Americana and even pop/rock, listeners of all tastes are applying terms from their favorite genres to her sound, thus producing an internationally-recognized persona that is difficult to categorize by traditional standards to put it mildly, and in this sense, Ahern’s new single “Didn’t Even Get a Goodbye” has a lot in common with its predecessors. “Didn’t Even Get a Goodbye” is a springy country-rock ballad performed with a bittersweet pop melody as its centerpiece, and next to the other songs in this talented singer’s discography, it’s a shining addition for sure. 

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Ahern’s vocal is absolutely riveting all by itself from start to finish in this track, but when coupled with the thrust of the beat in the background, it’s essentially unstoppable and addictively affectionate to no end. She’s got so much moxie in her performance here, and through the aggressive edge of the percussion, her lyrical statements get an added exclamation point that really puts the message in “Didn’t Even Get a Goodbye” over the top. I love the way she utilizes every tool at her disposal in the studio, and while I’ve come to expect a high caliber of chemistry between Ahern and her supporting players, she’s definitely got one of her best casts so far in this most recent studio recording. 

Beyond its efficiency (which is absolutely reason enough to give the whole song a spin this summer), the arrangement of the instrumentation in “Didn’t Even Get a Goodbye” definitely doesn’t force producers to sacrifice any of the track’s natural tonality for a pop polish almost required by the establishment to receive any kind of consistent airplay on the FM dial. There’s a brightness to the melodicism in this piece of music that doesn’t need any of the additional pomp and pageantry other singles would depend on to make an impact with fans around the world in 2020, and if that’s not impressive enough, it’s coming from an artist who isn’t working with a major label budget – and seems to be doing just fine without it. 

APPLE MUSIC: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/casey-ahern/1322783218

I’ve been following Casey Ahern for two years now, and she has only continued to show growth with every song I’ve heard from her so far. She’s ready to give us the LP we’ve long been asking for, and if there’s anything we can learn from 2020’s “Didn’t Even Get a Goodbye” and the two versions of “Sunday Driver” – acoustic and electric – it’s that she isn’t about to let the politics of an increasingly insular American underground hold her back from making it big on the mainstream side of the dial. She definitely deserves more attention than she’s been getting from the commercial press, and a track like this one could go a long way towards securing such spotlight on a long-term basis. 

Mindy McCall