Quietly devastating and deeply human, Crushing cemented Julia Jacklin as one of Australia’s most compelling songwriters. Built on restraint, vulnerability, and razor-sharp observation, it’s an album that reveals more with every listen.
Released in 2019, Crushing is Julia Jacklin at her most assured. Across eleven songs, she explores heartbreak, independence, loneliness, family, friendship and the complicated process of learning how to let go. There is a remarkable intimacy to the record, but never at the expense of craft. Every lyric feels carefully considered, every pause purposeful, and every emotional shift earned.
Julia Jacklin’s Crushing: heartbreak without the melodrama
At the heart of Crushing is the aftermath of a relationship ending. But rather than turning heartbreak into something grand or theatrical, Jacklin finds meaning in the smaller, more uncomfortable details.
The album’s title says a lot. Crushing captures the weight of grief, disappointment and emotional exhaustion, while also suggesting the pressure of trying to move forward. Jacklin writes about these experiences with an honesty that feels both intensely personal and immediately recognisable.
Songs such as “Body”, “Head Alone” and “Don’t Know How to Keep Loving You” explore intimacy and independence from different angles. There is sadness throughout Crushing, but there is also anger, humour, self-awareness and a growing sense of freedom.
That emotional complexity is one of the album’s greatest strengths. Jacklin never presents heartbreak as a simple journey from pain to healing. Instead, Crushing allows contradictory feelings to exist alongside one another.
The song writing of Julia Jacklin
Julia Jacklin’s song writing is deceptively direct. Her lyrics often use everyday language and familiar situations, but beneath that simplicity is an extraordinary attention to detail.
She has a talent for taking a small moment and making it carry enormous emotional weight. A conversation, a memory, a physical gesture or an awkward silence can become a way of examining an entire relationship.
On Crushing, this approach is particularly effective because the arrangements leave room for the words to breathe. The album moves between intimate, stripped-back passages and fuller indie rock arrangements, creating a sense of tension without overwhelming the song writing.
It is music that trusts the listener to pay attention.
“Head Alone” and the importance of boundaries
One of the defining songs on Crushing, “Head Alone” is a powerful example of Jacklin’s ability to turn a deeply personal experience into something universal.
The song is about boundaries, intimacy and the need to maintain a sense of self within a relationship. Its central idea is deceptively simple, but Jacklin delivers it with a mixture of vulnerability and determination.
There is something refreshing about hearing independence expressed so plainly. Crushing repeatedly asks what it means to belong to yourself, particularly after spending so much time being part of a couple.
“Pressure to Party” and the awkwardness of moving on
If Crushing is an album about heartbreak, it is also an album about what happens afterwards.
“Pressure to Party” captures the strange social expectations that can follow a breakup. There can be an assumption that moving on means going out, meeting people and proving that you are doing fine. Jacklin instead captures the awkwardness of being somewhere emotionally different from where everyone expects you to be.
It is a recurring theme throughout the album. Healing is not presented as glamorous, linear or particularly tidy.
That honesty is part of what makes Crushing so enduring.
“Don’t Know How to Keep Loving You”
The album closes with “Don’t Know How to Keep Loving You”, a song that brings many of Crushing’s themes into focus.
Rather than offering a neat resolution, Jacklin leaves us with uncertainty. Love can remain even when a relationship can no longer continue in the same way. Sometimes understanding that distinction is part of growing up.
The song’s restraint makes its emotional impact even stronger. There is no need for an oversized finale. Instead, Jacklin lets the feeling linger.
Why we're still Crushing on this album
More than five years after its release, Crushing remains a standout Australian indie album because its emotional world feels so honest.
There are no easy answers here. Jacklin writes about relationships without romanticising them, independence without pretending it is effortless, and heartbreak without turning it into a performance.
The result is an album that feels remarkably close to real life.
It is also a record that rewards repeated listening. The first listen might leave you with a particular lyric or melody, while subsequent listens reveal another detail, another contradiction or another quietly devastating observation.
That is the magic of Crushing. It does not demand attention through volume. It earns it through honesty.
Julia Jacklin’s Crushing: a modern Australian classic
For anyone discovering Julia Jacklin for the first time, Crushing is an essential starting point. For long time fans, it remains a defining statement from an artist whose song writing continues to evolve.
It is vulnerable without being sentimental, restrained without being distant, and deeply personal without ever feeling exclusive.
Crushing is an album about the messy space between holding on and letting go. And sometimes, the albums that understand that space best are the ones we keep returning to.
If you have not listened to Crushing in a while, put it on from the beginning and give it your full attention. Some albums ask to be heard. Crushing asks to be felt.
Featured album: Crushing by Julia Jacklin