On June 28th, 2024, indie-folk artist Daniel Nunnelee released his debut album, “June, Baby.” Now, exactly one month later, the album has already garnered the alternative Nashville musician nearly half a million streams with those numbers currently on the rise. 

I was first introduced to Nunnelee’s warm, authentic sound like much of his fan base was… on TikTok. In early 2022, Nunnelee’s self-prescribed ‘happy song about death,’ “Oak Trees” began trending on the social media app and has had several spikes in popularity since, along with his single “Pick and Choose.” In the last two years, Daniel has maintained a relatively active presence on social media posting about playlists, singles, and capitalizing on the love for these two songs, gaining himself over 250k followers across TikTok and Instagram before taking the step to release his first full-length album. 

“June, Baby,” the ten-track love letter to young adulthood and its trials and tribulations is a gift to listeners - a personal and heartfelt offering from Nunnelee full of yearning and vulnerability. Packed with earthy imagery and genuine emotion, the album embraces themes of longing and wandering, reflecting Nunelee’s time on the road as a musician. Though the position is a unique one that many listeners will never experience in their lifetime, the universality of the themes of desire, love, and nostalgia that flow through the album make it deeply personal and relatable. While the album’s lyrics recount memories of being away from home and tell stories of relationships altered by distance, this sense of ‘roving’ is mirrored in the album’s sound. Musically, “June, Baby” takes listeners on a journey, not unlike going on a roadtrip with Nunnelee himself, where tonal differences mark bends in the road and each melody reminds you to accelerate or to slow down and take in the view. In true journey fashion, the album leaves you in a different place than when you began. 

Compared to Nunnelee’s early singles, “June, Baby” has notably higher production value though across the album, the instrumentation remains simple, something key to its alternative sound. As an early representation of Daniel’s work as an artist, “June, Baby” offers a beautiful mix of the classic indie-folk sound that the singer has come to be known for, while introducing a harder, punchier sound to certain tracks and a soft embrace to others. In this regard, many qualities of the album’s tracks contrast with one another but combine to create a dynamic representation of the intricacies and complexities of this period of the human experience. 

The album opens with “Deer Trails” which lays the groundwork for the nine tracks to come. It’s here that we get our first taste of Daniel’s use of natural visuals and storytelling that will carry through the rest of the album. With lyrics like “I just wish I knew what was going on // In the backseat, wondering where we're going” we are placed in the car with Nunnelee asking the same questions of the music to come. The song has an incredibly strong sense of place (or lack thereof, really) transporting us to a natural oasis far from the hustle and bustle of contemporary life. The song’s smooth, gentle sound with its supportive percussion ease listeners into the album echoing the feeling of the place Nunnelee describes.  

The following two tracks on the album, “Do You?” and “Be Someone Else” really build Daniel’s relationship to the listener of the songs. Across the album, Nunnelee takes on a very ‘direct’ lyricism style, with many songs feeling as though they are directed at a particular person. These figures are ambiguous but when we picture past lovers, ourselves, or even Daniel himself in that position, the songs take on a new layer of meaning. With these two tracks leaning into a more traditional indie-rock sound, we can see Daniel’s style really taking form. “Do You?” showcases a raspy quality of Nunnelee’s voice hasn’t been as prevalent in earlier releases but is a beautiful addition. These tracks further the sense of longing and desperation as Nunnelee cries “I would rather be someone else than be myself without you.”

Straying from traditional musical forms, the next track on the album “I Wanna Die Before You Die” gets straight to the point; this forty second song is sharp and powerful, feeling like a thought with very little translation. It stands in stark contras with the following track, “Kick Down That Door.” It’s here where Nunnelee really feels like he’s coming into his own sound. Beyond his viral TikTok hits, we are starting to experience a power coming from Nunnelee’s voice and overall production that match the sentiments that this song speaks to lyrically.