We Speak Pop
Five Years On, Alessia Cara Gives ‘In the Meantime’ Its Final Word With ‘Apartment Song’ Video
Album campaigns almost never circle back to the last song on the record. Alessia Cara just did. On October 1, 2026, the Grammy-winning Def Jam singer released the official video for “Apartment Song,” the 18th and closing track of her third album, In the Meantime, capping a week of programming built around the album’s fifth anniversary. She announced the clip as her final offering of the anniversary run, acknowledging the five-year wait with a wink: better late than never.
In the Meantime, released September 24, 2021, remains the most acclaimed album of Cara’s career, holding an 80 on Metacritic. She wrote every song on it herself, much of it in her bedroom during lockdown, with a single guest appearance from CHIKA on “Middle Ground.” “Apartment Song,” written about the first place she lived after moving out of her parents’ home, is the album’s gentle send-off: a bouncy, self-assured ode to single life and chosen solitude, celebrating a woman perfectly content in her own company. The new video leans into that spirit, playing like a party for one.
The clip is a family production. It was shot and directed by her brother, Dario Caracciolo, and co-edited by the siblings together, and it is the first visual lifted from the album since “You Let Me Down” in May 2022. In the years since, Cara has hardly been idle: her fourth album, Love & Hyperbole, arrived on Valentine’s Day 2025. But this fall she chose to return to the record her fans hold closest, the one she framed as being about the space between life and death, and give its quietest song a picture at last.
That is a distinctly Alessia Cara move. Since winning the Grammy for Best New Artist in 2018, she has built a career on tending her catalog with unusual care rather than chasing the next era at full speed. Giving “Apartment Song” its moment, five years on, closes the In the Meantime story on her terms, and it tells her audience something they already suspected: with Cara, no song she believes in ever really gets left behind.
The Kid LAROI Finally Links With GIVĒON on ‘GET EVEN’ as His World Tour Takes Europe
Tate McRae’s “Housewife” Debuts at No. 2 on the Hot 100 and No. 1 on Both Global Charts
Lili Caseley, Fabe Da Don and Esosa Gabrielle Continue Their Radio Momentum with Another Week on The Indy Hook Up
Kiey Reveals New Album “METROMIRAGE”
Central Cee Finally Unleashes the Full ‘Iceman Freestyle,’ and the Video Is Pure Peaky Blinders
Ashley Graham Completes a Third Straight Victoria’s Secret Run in Flower Wings
Paloma Elsesser Walks Her Third Straight Victoria’s Secret Show in Pink and White
Dominic Fike Drops His Third Album Tomorrow, While an Eight-Year-Old Song Sits at No. 1
Some collaborations feel overdue the moment they are announced. The Kid LAROI and GIVĒON, two of the defining young voices in melodic pop and R&B, had never appeared on a record together until “GET EVEN,” which arrived the week of September 22 with an Ayodeji-directed video. The single pairs LAROI’s raw, diaristic delivery with GIVĒON’s baritone, and it plays like a conversation neither artist could have had with anyone else.
The song has an unusual history. Both “GET EVEN” and its predecessor, the late-August single “SLEEP,” were first written for an album LAROI completed and then scrapped entirely before making his most recent full-length, BEFORE I FORGET. Revisiting that material, he decided the two songs deserved daylight after all, and both have been rolled out as stand-alone singles, each with a visual from Ayodeji, now his go-to director two videos running.
The releases arrive in the middle of a heavy touring stretch. LAROI’s A PERFECT WORLD tour opened its United Kingdom and European leg on October 27 in Birmingham, and the run continues across the continent before wrapping November 17 in the Czech Republic. It is the kind of long-haul routing that has defined his career since he broke out of Australia as a teenager and became one of pop’s most reliable arena draws.
His run with Grade A Productions and Columbia Records has been built on that consistency: emotionally direct songwriting delivered at stadium scale, with each era documented almost in real time for a fanbase that has grown up alongside him. The scrapped-album detour behind “GET EVEN” fits the pattern, an artist more interested in getting the record right than in protecting a release schedule.
With the European leg underway and another potential signature song in circulation, LAROI’s fall is shaping up as a reminder of how he got here: one honest record at a time, at very large volume.
Five Years On, Alessia Cara Gives ‘In the Meantime’ Its Final Word With ‘Apartment Song’ VideoTate McRae’s “Housewife” Debuts at No. 2 on the Hot 100 and No. 1 on Both Global ChartsLili Caseley, Fabe Da Don and Esosa Gabrielle Continue Their Radio Momentum with Another Week on The Indy Hook UpKiey Reveals New Album “METROMIRAGE”Central Cee Finally Unleashes the Full ‘Iceman Freestyle,’ and the Video Is Pure Peaky BlindersAshley Graham Completes a Third Straight Victoria’s Secret Run in Flower WingsPaloma Elsesser Walks Her Third Straight Victoria’s Secret Show in Pink and WhiteDominic Fike Drops His Third Album Tomorrow, While an Eight-Year-Old Song Sits at No. 1-
We Speak Jazz6 days agoToronto Jazz Singer Ori Dagan Announces First Live Album ‘Live in the Market’ for October 23 Release
-
WE Speak MMA1 week agoUFC 334: Gane vs. Hokit, Harrison vs. Nunes Title Fights Set for November 14 at Madison Square Garden
-
We Speak Boxing1 week agoMost Valuable Promotions Announces MVPW-07: Four World Title Fights Headlined by Baumgardner vs. Turhan in Arlington
-
We Speak Comedy1 week agoNate Bargatze Plays Rexburg Tomorrow, Then Settles Into Las Vegas on the Record-Breaking Big Dumb Eyes Tour