The fourth album by singer-songwriter Maya Hawke, Maitreya Corso, includes a track called “Slacker in the Rye”, a title that parodies Hawke‘s self-professed fear: that she would become a modern-day Holden Caulfield, needlessly cynical about her privileged circumstances.
As a whole, the record describes the perils of ambition and the difficulty of maintaining relationships in spite of them. In “Devil You Know”, Hawke recalls an argument with a friend that forced her to reassess the value of career achievements. In a 2026 interview with Rolling Stone, the singer-songwriter expanded on this change in perspective: “It would [only] ever feel like enough if it was too much.”
In “Lioness”, Hawke describes her relationship to a well-known accolade: a starring role in Netflix’s Stranger Things. “They put my name on the poster / Trapped me on the rollercoaster,” she says. A franchise is a lot of work. A 2025 Esquire profile of Hawke’s Stranger Things co-star Joe Keery implied the actor was eager to move on from the series. “He’s been itching for that freedom for a long time,” Esquire’s Josh Rosenberg wrote.
However, Maitreya Corso is about finding inspiration in unexpected places. “Lioness” ends with a touching vignette in which Hawke describes acting alongside another Stranger Things co-star, whom the song refers to as Sadie (Sink). “At the bottom of it all there’s a big dream / Grass growin’ back through the concrete,” Hawke sings.
Maitreya Corso ties together its thematic throughline on the penultimate track, “Maitreya and the Way Back”, by revisiting a refrain from the album opener “Love of My Life”. The chorus of the latter begins with a disarmingly arresting minor chord; in pop songs, choruses usually open on major chords. Starting with a minor conveys Hawke’s joy and uncertainty about the future. By revisiting this verse on “Way Back”, the singer-songwriter completes a journey and acknowledges that some of life’s questions are always worth asking.
On Maitreya Corso, Hawke makes Laurel Canyon-style acoustics her own sonic universe. Lyrically, the actor-turned-singer is a verbose version of the musician Clairo, withdrawn even when holding the spotlight. “Heavy Rain” is a tender moment of reconciliation with a lover. In the song’s bridge, Hawke watches children play: “They’ve got a good thing going / They don’t know it, but they’ve got time.”
The closer “Dream House” also reflects on the passage of time. In an upbeat, folksy chorus, Hawke asks, “Isn’t time flying by?” She later concludes, “I am falling in love with my life.” Although Hawke has lingered within an acoustic palette since her debut, this consistency has been a worthy canvas for her sprawling, insightful lyrics. The wisdom, melodic restraint, and tasteful arrangements that underpin each song prove Hawke’s unique talent. (As the daughter of actors Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman, she inevitably would have had to pass the nepotism test.)
In “Love of My Life”, Hawke asks, “What if I got what I wanted? What if I was who I wanna to be?” These questions follow a person throughout life, but are not burdens. Creating the soundtrack of their inquiry leads to fulfillment. In “Last Living Lost Cause”, a song about dating someone trapped in a cycle of self-loathing, Maya Hawke says, “I’ve known happy geniuses.” Why is this statement a paradox? Hawke has found her own unique happiness inside a chrysalis of fame. To some, it may seem strange, but every person needs to find their own recipe for contentment anyway.