Yavin is glad he didn’t “make it” in the music biz by age 27, and you should be, too. Because we wouldn’t have his new self-described “sad little banger” otherwise.
The Los Angeles-via-Boston pop artist rang in the new year and a new era earlier this month (January 10) with “Thirty,” a single that captures the often-daunting leap between your 20s and 30s. The song begins with unease — complete with an auto-tuned lament of “tick-tock” echoing in the background — and ends on a more upbeat note, culminating with a 2010s-esque dance outro. Intentional or not, it’s the perfect mirror of the average adult’s emotions pre- and post-30th birthday.
“When I turned 29 and it had dawned on me that I was leaving my 20s behind, and that my life didn’t turn out the way I had dreamed for it to, I had to grapple with that pain and confusion for a bit, which wasn’t easy,” Yavin said in a video on Instagram, explaining his initial disappointment that his career hadn’t met the benchmark he had set for himself years ago.
But as his 30th birthday drew closer, his hindsight sharpened to 20/20.
“In retrospect, I’m so glad that I didn’t ‘make it’ when I was 27, because when I think about the place that I was in at that age, I remember that I was pretty fucking miserable,” he added, to the point that he “nearly fell out of love” with making music.
Since then, he’s rekindled the spark in the studio — and you might even say that he’s feeling pretty enamored of the big 3-0, too, now that he’s officially made the plunge into a new decade.
“The world tells us that we’re supposed to slow down when we enter these new, mature chapters of our lives, and to that I say: no,” Yavin concluded in the video. “You don’t have to feel like your prime years end at 30. We are seeing so many people hit their stride past 30, achieve success past 30, find true happiness at 30, and so don’t let anyone ever or any societal pressures prevent you from living the life that you want to live.”
Tune in below.