“I Didn’t Think About Noah” is what happens when you take all your worst thoughts about being alive online, smear them in glitchy synths, and then light the whole thing on fire with a distorted scream. It’s the sonic equivalent of staring into a cracked phone screen at 3AM, trying to remember if you actually liked that person or if you just liked their content. It’s also, somehow, a bop.
Sean at the Hotel, whose upcoming album Everyone Younger Than Us Was Abducted By Aliens sounds like the title of a conspiracy YouTube deep-dive you’d watch against your better judgment, doesn’t do subtle. The track opens like a browser window with too many tabs, complete with skittering percussion, synths that sound like a printer trying to speak English, and absolutely zero interest in comforting you. You’re either on board or you’re drowning in digital static.
Lyrically, it’s an open letter to the part of you that still thinks you might turn out okay. “I Didn’t Think About Noah” doesn’t give you answers; it gives you spirals. There are vague references to personal betterment, to trying to be a “good person,” and the terrifying realization that being a good person in 2025 might just mean not ruining everything by existing. It’s both very sad and very funny, which is exactly the kind of duality you expect from a song that feels like it was written during a panic attack in a loading screen.
And the title? Who is Noah? Is he a friend? A metaphor? A biblical reference? Your middle school classmate you never replied to on Facebook Messenger in 2012? Sean doesn’t say. And of course he doesn’t. Because trying to pin meaning down in this song is like trying to screenshot a feeling. It’s blurry. It’s unstable. It’s also the point.
The final chorus is where everything fully comes apart. Think: auto-tuned anxiety, compressed catharsis, and the musical version of finally letting yourself cry in the grocery store. It’s broken, it’s beautiful, it’s kind of triumphant, and it absolutely does not resolve. There is no closure here. Only feedback.
In a music landscape where most artists are trying to sand down their weirdness for algorithmic approval, “I Didn’t Think About Noah” is a glorious act of defiance. It doesn’t want to be playlisted. It wants to haunt your brain like a push notification that makes your stomach drop. It’s eccentric, erratic, and deeply human in the most internet-poisoned way imaginable.
If you’ve ever tried to better yourself via YouTube essays, mood boards, or 3-hour podcasts about dopamine detoxing, I Didn’t Think About Noah by Sean at the Hotel is your intervention. You’re welcome. Or sorry. Probably both.
Follow Sean at the Hotel
About the Author
A tenured media critic known working as a ghost writer, freelance critic for publications in the US and former lead writer of Atop The Treehouse. Reviews music, film and TV shows for media aggregators.
