After bewitching fans with her first two albums, it was only “A Matter of Time” before Laufey did it again. The 26-year-old Icelandic-Chinese singer released her first EP, “Typical of Me,” in 2021. The jazz-classical-pop star followed this with her debut album, “Everything I Know About Love” in 2022 and the Grammy award-winning album “Bewitched” in 2023. She later released “Bewitched (Goddess Edition)” in 2024 and duets with Norah Jones and Barbra Streisand. On Aug. 22, 2025 Laufey released her third album “A Matter of Time,” which added another accomplishment to her already numerous collection, why don’t we let the numbers speak for themselves.
Increasing every day, as of Oct. 1 “A Matter of Time” has over 270 million streams on Spotify, and the “Lover Girl” music video has 9.5 million views on YouTube. The album debuted at #4 on the Billboard 200 and #1 on US independent and jazz albums.
Like the name suggests, one of the main themes of the album is time. In an interview with Associated Press, Laufey describes her fascination with time because humans have no control over it, but they always want to change it somehow, and that feels very romantic to her. She creates music with her goal of bringing the jazz and classical genres, music introduced to her by family, to younger generations by mixing them with pop. Laufey’s previous albums, “Everything I Know About Love” and “Bewitched” were extremely successful, both having over 1 billion streams, although some listeners didn’t understand the hype of the albums. A review from the Harvard Crimson said Laufey’s music can almost sabotage itself, and some of the songs sound too similar, like “La-la-la! Skies are blue! I’m in love!”– repelling some listeners. So, she took the opportunity to step out of, and in some cases completely abandon, her comfort zone, make music that critics didn’t expect, and succeed. After reaching an average score of 85/100 on Metacritic and breaking Michael Bublé’s record for highest debuting jazz album on the Billboard Hot 200, I would say she accomplished this goal.
The album starts with “Clockwork” and “Lover Girl,” a familiar jazzy sound for fans, taking inspiration from the Great American Songbook, basically the holy grail for plenty of Laufey’s music. Both songs have various anxiety-filled lyrics, but then the mood completely changes. Her next three songs, “Snow White,” “Castle in Hollywood,” and “Carousel” have more obvious regretful, depressing lyrics. A clear example of this is in the fourth single of the album, released on Aug. 7, “Snow White.” Lyrics like “But mirrors tell lies to me, my mind just plays along” add to the main theme of self-doubt in the album and to the melancholic mood of these three songs.
The mood changes again in “Silver Lining.” The first single from the album, released on April 3., gave fans a sneak peek to the pop aspect of this album. Listeners interpreted the lyrics in various ways, including Genius lyrics commenters, understanding it as an immature relationship full of bad decisions. Laufey confirmed others’ interpretations when announcing the song, saying the song is about being able to act fun and entirely yourself when you love and trust someone.
But of course, mirroring the emotional rollercoaster of life, the mood shifts again. “Too Little, Too Late” is a prime example of her mixture of genres, as this song includes some jazz, classical, and pop elements. At “A Very Laufey Day” in Los Angeles, Laufey said the song was about male yearning because she feels like people minimize it, and she wanted to write a song from the male perspective. One part of the song that stuck out to fans was the orchestral instruments. Pop Passion Music Blog said the music builds up and down, adding to the drama of the song and its story. The song is also dramatized by never allowing the chords to completely resolve, going against musical standards to fully tell the story, and reflecting the unresolved conflict in the lyrics. This album includes an interlude, “Cuckoo Ballet (Interlude),” decorated with other songs from the album. She featured a similar song on “Bewitched” that also featured elements of other songs. This one first references “Lover Girl,” then “Snow White,” “Carousel,” and finally “Clockwork.”
Next on the tracklist is “Forget-Me-Not,” one of Laufey’s favorite songs from the album as she said on her social media. This song is a love letter to Iceland, her home country, disguised as a message to a partner. Listeners can deduce the meaning from lyrics like “I’m still that child on a black sand beach” and Icelandic lines that translate to “Don’t forget me, even though I’m leaving. I love you. I’ll love you forever.” In an interview with Rolling Stone, Laufey said the song was her way of telling Iceland she still loves it, even though she had to leave and chase her dreams. She explained the Icelandic lyrics and how she tried writing it in English, but it felt like she was lying to her country.
The eleventh song of the album, “A Cautionary Tale,” takes a seemingly normal experience, an exhausting relationship, and describes it like a fairy tale. Laufey uses this song to tell the story of how she lost herself in a relationship because of her people-pleasing tendencies and serves as a warning to others to avoid similar situations. The next song, “Mr. Eclectic” was recorded with singer-songwriter Clairo, and is about a conceited guy trying to win someone over with his “extensive” knowledge of poetry and classical musicians. Fans consider this song ironic because Laufey and Clairo are staples of the performative male trend, along with wired earbuds and feminist literature. “Clean Air” describes the feeling of escaping a suffocating relationship, the kind mentioned in “A Cautionary Tale,” and how she purged her life of him after he ruined it.
The final song on the album is “Sabotage.” The name alone continues the theme of insecurity and personal flaws but so do the lyrics. Laufey once again expresses feelings of anxiety with the lyric “I get in my head so easily.” She goes on to explain how she ruins her relationships without trying and how there’s only a matter of time until everybody sees her faults and leaves. The song is about self-sabotage, and the song almost sabotages itself with random bursts of jarring strings and a final crescendo of dissonance at the end. This was the first song written for the album; it inspired the name and clearly some of the songs. For example, “Too Little, Too Late” mentions a wedding, which could be inspired by the lyrics “I swear that one day, I’ll marry you” in “Sabotage.” This song essentially acts as a summary for the album, connecting all the songs.
The album also has a bonus track. “Seems Like Old Times” was originally written by Guy Lombardo, and is considered a part of the Great American Songbook. In this album, Laufey uses her signature sound but also introduces a new experimental and vulnerable era to fans. One of her goals with this album was proving to critics that her music doesn’t all sound the same, and fans seem to agree she exceeded everybody’s expectations.
