In 2001, I was an 18-year-old gay kid growing up in northeastern Montana, trying to figure out who I was and what my future might look like. Like a lot of teenagers at the dawn of the internet age, I spent countless hours online – and not just for the reasons you’re thinking (though yes, I was) a lot of it was finding music. That’s where I first discovered Brooke Alison.

Alison was a singer from Fort Worth, Texas whose debut single, ｢The Kiss Off (Goodbye)｣, cleverly incorporated the familiar (at the time) AOL sign-off. She had been signed to Virgin Records after a recording executive discovered her music online, a story that felt remarkably modern at the time. Critics weren’t especially kind to her self-titled debut album, with one reviewer dismissing it as evidence of pop music’s assembly-line tendencies.

I never heard it that way.

There was a theatricality to Alison’s voice and an earnestness to her music that resonated with me. Her songs explored romance, heartbreak, hope, and longing with a sincerity that felt age-appropriate and genuine. They were emotions I was only beginning to understand myself, and her music became part of the soundtrack to that chapter of my life.

That same year, Alison contributed four songs to the soundtrack of Cinderella II: Dreams Come True. Even now, more than two decades later, ｢Put It Together (Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo)｣ remains an absolute Disney banger.

When I left for university, Brooke Alison was one of the artists permanently loaded into my massive 20-disc CD changer (Thanks, Dad). Admittedly, she was often bumped aside in favor of heavier rotation favorites like Evanescence and Linkin Park, but her music never completely disappeared from my life. Over the years, hearing one of her songs was like opening a time capsule, an instant hit of nostalgia that transported me back to a very specific moment in my youth.

I hadn’t thought much about Alison’s career in recent years until I began digging through forgotten corners of early-2000s pop music while searching for inspiration for My Super Fiancé.

That’s when I learned what had happened.

After breing released from her contract with Virigin, Alison continued making music, but in 2018, just weeks before her thirty-second birthday, she suffered two cardiac arrests. The  result of which was a severe brain injury that left her in a coma. She has remained in a vegetative state ever since. Her family established the  Brooke Adams recovery fund, though updates have become increasingly rare over the years.

I’ve never met Brooke Alison. She has no idea who I am. But her music brought a great deal of joy to a confused teenager growing up far from the worlds she sang about. Twenty-five years later, I still remember those songs.

I don’t know if this post will reach anyone who can help, but if it does, please consider supporting her family. Some artists leave a bigger mark on our lives than album sales or chart positions can ever measure.

I’m still hoping she finds her way back.