Audrey Huynh has been in love once or twice — each time, she throws herself into love as if nothing else matters. But what about the other side? The kind of love that consumes you so deeply, it makes you feel physically sick? Where happiness and joy can quickly turn into something almost unbearable? Huynh explores this duality on her debut EP, lovesick, out today (Feb. 14), which is a fitting release for the most romantic day of the year.
Huynh wrote much of the EP during her freshman year of college, while bouncing back and forth from South Korea and balancing academics with her passion for music. Now she reflects on how those years shaped her identity, relationships and creativity. Huynh’s discography is a growing masterclass in heartfelt storytelling, as she captures both the highs and lows of love and its more uncertain, painful moments.
One track that encapsulates these feelings is the lead single “apartment complex,” the first song she wrote off the EP. Huynh builds off the idea of being stuck in something, whether you want to or not, amid the backdrop of a guitar and her voice; she shared that she wanted to play on the word “lovesick.” She sings, “So I kept your stuff in boxes hoping you’d convince me not to move you out of my head / Got a whole apartment complex of things that you once said.”
“You could think of it as like, ‘I’m so in love, [I’m so] happy and I’m so lovesick,'” Huynh said. “But how I have always chosen to see the word is that, ‘I’m so in love that it’s making me physically ill.’ It’s hurting me in a way…kind of just being negatively sick with love.'”
While Huynh is unsure whether to move on or hold onto hope on “apartment complex,” which starts with an empty apartment and evolves into someone taking up an entire apartment complex in her mind, “feel something” takes these unknowns to a deeper level — wondering if love was ever real in the first place.
As a result, Huynh makes second-guessing a central theme throughout the debut EP. The chorus in “feel something” poses an aching question: “Did you ever care? Did it all mean nothing?” Her favorite song off the EP, the production of “feel something” is intentionally empty and reflective, featuring a gradual build of guitar, piano and light bass.
“It’s a lot of second guessing, self-reflection and thinking back on something that happened,” Huynh said. “It’s really relatable for a lot of people, even just outside of a relationship standpoint…looking back on the situation and feeling all the feelings that you’re feeling now and comparing them to how you were feeling before, is something that so many people deal with.”
Yet, this bittersweet nostalgia is far from over. She wonders if “you miss it, too,” navigating the confusion about a relationship with unresolved feelings. Through regret and a lingering ache in her stomach, Huynh conveys this deep longing by trying to go through the motions of what’s it like without that person. She must confess, “I know it’s bad / I know I shouldn’t but I do,” and “I know it wasn’t right / I know it was a matter of time.” Written during her freshman year of college, the song captures the fleeting intensity of a college situationship.
“I really wrote about this feeling of longing and [how] you used to have something, but it’s gone now [even] when you want it back,” she said. “This song [‘you miss it, too’] is also really special to me and it [captures] the feeling of vulnerability, of outwardly saying, like, ‘I missed you,’ [which] is a very hard thing to say.”
For many new artists, a debut project can feel overwhelming, but for Huynh, lovesick had been pouring out of her for years. Writing and recording these songs felt natural, yet the process still surprised her.
“I had such a connection to [these songs], and at the time that I was writing them, they were so important and a huge reflection of what was going on in my life,” Huynh said. “I honestly just loved the whole experience, like top to bottom, just going from writing the songs, taking them to the studio and working on a music video.”
But Huynh’s artistic expression doesn’t stop at music. As she poured her heart into lovesick, she was also stepping into a brand-new creative venture — acting.
She made her on-screen debut as Stella, a sweet girl-turned-villain and student at K.I.S.S., on the critically acclaimed Netflix series, XO, Kitty (2023-) starring Anna Cathcart. A spinoff of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, the show follows Cathcart’s Kitty Song Covey as she moves to South Korea to reunite with her long-distance boyfriend — only to discover that relationships are far more complicated than they seem. Filming the season was a whirlwind for Huynh, who called the experience “one of the greatest experiences of [her] life.”
“I’m so glad that it’s out, and I’m so glad that people can finally see Stella’s character. [I’ve been] keeping her in for a really long time,” Huynh shared. “Being able to play with Stella, her emotions and her arc was really interesting and really fun as an actor.”
Huynh was able to merge her love for music with her passion for acting, even performing her own rendition of the Christian hymn “Amazing Grace” on the show. She added, “I was able to connect with her character in that way…I sang [Stella’s] audition tape. It was such a cool couple of months of my life.”
In a series that captures love in all forms — from crushes to first love to first heartbreak — it perfectly ties into Huynh’s debut EP. She finds love can teach you both the messy and the comfortable, and that yes, love can make you physically sick and sick with love. Despite initially being her least favorite track on the project, the title track wraps the listener into a warm embrace that serves as the genesis of the EP. As she builds her career with both her debut EP and acting debut, Huynh is not finished growing and hopes that lovesick can make listeners feel seen and heard.
“A lot of it is so relatable, and it’s stuff that [most] people are afraid to talk about,” she said. “So knowing that there is someone that is going through exactly everything that you’re going through…You’re definitely not alone, and I just really hope that people can relate to the songs and feel a connection to them.”
Keep up with Audrey Huynh: Instagram // Spotify // TikTok // YouTube
