The Pains of Growing, released Friday via Def Jam Records, is the 22-year-old Canadian-born talent’s second studio album. It comes three years after her debut record Know-It-All surfaced in 2015. Cara, who won a Grammy for Best New Artist in February, was in no rush to return with a new record. She was more focused on taking her time to create music that best represented her current stage, which is something she simply refers to as just “another body of work I’ve made.”
“The inspiration behind pretty much the whole thing was just [me] going through a lot of stuff these three years. Not having put out an album in three years, there’s a lot of built up stuff that I wanted to say. It was a huge transitional period for me, those three years,” Cara explained. “I just had a lot I wanted to talk about. Even throughout the making of the album…more stuff started happening that I felt like I could keep writing about. It turned into what the album is now, which is an album about change, transition, growth, pain and happiness. I think it’s about the human experience really.”
The album is now available for streaming and pre-order on vinyl here.