HAIM – I quit

My first exposure to HAIM was a late afternoon performance at Lollapalooza in Chicago in 2016. Their 2013 debut, Days Are Gone, was well hyped, but didn’t catch my attention. The live performance was great, and so I checked out Days Are Gone, but I found my reaction was meh (although time has enlightened me – I now see its greatness). Their next album, Something to Tell You (2017), did hook me – “Want You Back” was a banger!

Women in Music Pt. III (2020) was even better– more experimental and quirky (in a good way). I quit (2025) is their best yet, and “Relationships” is their greatest single.

HAIM is a sibling band made up of three Haim sisters, Este (bass guitar and vocals), Danielle (lead vocals, guitar, and drums), and Alana Haim (guitars, keyboards, and vocals). Their Israeli-born father, Mordechai “Moti” Haim, and their American mother Donna, were both musical; though he had been a professional soccer player in Israel, Moti also played drums, while Donna won a contest on The Gong Show in the 1970s, singing a Bonnie Raitt song. The sisters played in various bands, and Danielle was a musician in various touring bands (Jenny Lewis, Julian Casablancas, etc.). In 2012, they released an EP and started gaining traction. They are famously close friends of Taylor Swift. Sibling bands are generally corny, yet when they work, they are sublime. HAIM works. HAIM has a dash of punky mischief, and they come off as if the Beastie Boys were a ’60s girl group – they are brilliantly ridiculous.

Since they first came on the scene, their Fleetwood Mac influence is obvious – something the band admits. I would specifically narrow that down to Lindsey Buckingham. Buckingham is the mad professor in Fleetwood Mac with the ability to create pop perfection and stay weird (and annoying). That is what I see them stealing from Fleetwood Mac: Lindsey Buckingham’s pixie dust. HAIM is on the weird to pop-perfection spectrum, leaning into the rock – despite being pop as AF, they are ultimately a rock band, and this becomes obvious when you see them live.

I quit is a perfection of the sound they have been evolving. It rocks, it’s funky, but also has a singer-songwriter vibe – they remind me of Sheryl Crow in her prime. I recently saw Haim live in Minneapolis, and the I quit songs were prominent in the set list (12 of the 15 songs from the album in a 21-song set). After hearing I quit live, I like it even more.