FEATURE:
A Truly Brilliant Year for Music…
PHOTO CREDIT: cottonbro studio/Pexels
Part Two: My Favourite Albums of 2023
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FOR the first part…
IN THIS PHOTO: Blur
of this feature, I collated my favourite singles of the year. I crowned a bronze and silver medal option followed by a top ten. This dozen concerns the best albums of 2023. At least the ones that I see as the very best. It has been a remarkably strong year for music, so there are going to be some big omissions. I know that, as we close in on the end of the year, there will be more and more features that rank the best albums and singles of the year. I have been really engrossed by albums from established artists and some newer ones alike. I am looking forward to discovering what the next year holds in store. There are going to be some massive albums released, that is for sure! Below are my dozen wonderful albums from this year that I feel…
IN THIS PHOTO: Corinne Bailey Rae
ARE hard to beat!
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BRONZE: Blur – The Ballad of Darren
Release Date: 21st July
Labels: Parlophone/Warner
Producer: James Ford
Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/en-gb/product/blur/the-ballad-of-darren-2
Standout Tracks: The Ballad/The Narcissist/The Heights
Review:
“While 2003’s ‘Think Tank’ emerged despite Graham Coxon and, twelve years later, ‘The Magic Whip’ was completed because of him, it’s tempting to assert that in 2023 it’s Damon Albarn who might need his bandmates around him more than at any point this century. He’s called it an “aftershock record,” following in the wake of the pandemic, losses like Tony Allen and Bobby Womack and, closest to home, the deaths of long-term tour manager Craig Duffy and his wife.
The desire to reflect on those most important to the band is immediately evident. The album’s title derives from Albarn returning to a track from his twenty-year-old, low-key, lo-fi solo effort ‘Democrazy’; ‘Half A Song’, which Darren ‘Smoggy’ Evans – another of the group’s work family – had begged him to finish ever since. Opener ‘The Ballad’ is gorgeous, fitting perfectly in the grand tradition of slow, aching blur beauties. Despite Damon’s lyrical tendency towards the abstract, it’s hard to escape a sense of emotional turmoil.
‘Barbaric’ is immediately one of their very best, melding heartbreaking lyrics to as memorable a melody as they’ve deployed since the mid-Nineties. The enormous chorus initially asserts: “I have lost the feeling that I thought I’d never lose, now where am I going?” before switching the pronoun to “you” and “we” as it progresses. When the strings ascend towards a conclusion, it arrives at a place of irresistible but unflinching vulnerability. It’s one of a number of tracks that serve as a reminder that Alex James is one of the most criminally underrated bassists in popular music.
‘St Charles Square’ features Fripping marvellous, raucous posturing, with screams in the chorus and tales of a fearful creature under the floorboards. It made for a visceral set-opener during recent gigs and was so clearly a delight to record. Some will cry for more like it, but what can initially feel a little one-paced is actually a nuanced exploration of the constituent parts of blur in 2023. The brief plunge from chorus to verse in ‘Russian Strings’, slowly intensifying orchestration of ‘The Everglades’ and barely controlled electronic vibrations of ‘Goodbye Albert’ all foreground the band’s distinctive DNA, fizzing with obvious chemistry from dynamic studio time.
Blistering first single ‘The Narcissist’ is a striking reflection on the effects of fame with a near-perfect hook. Coxon’s spacious playing continues on ‘Avalon’, sitting naturally alongside some slight but euphoric piano refrains from Albarn. Closer ‘The Heights’ appears to nod to the faithful, treasuring the connection that exists between band and audience. Tense, manic strings chop away at the languid celebration, presaging a gathering storm of noise that reaches its peak only to be plunged abruptly into silence. No neat resolutions here, folks. Onwards. 9/10” – CLASH
Key Cut: Barbaric
SILVER: Róisín Murphy – Hit Parade
Release Date: 8th September
Label: Ninja Tune
Producer: DJ Koze
Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/en-gb/product/roisin-murphy/hit-parade-2
Standout Tracks: What Not to Do/CooCool/Free Will
Review:
“The sublimity is also unmistakably down to Murphy’s painfully accurate reflection of the phantom intimacy that is unrequited or even forbidden infatuation: the power and powerlessness, the whiplash of obsession and rejection. Hit Parade starts with a dare, the dripping, dubbed-out shudder of What Not to Do, in which Murphy posits: “Whether you want it / Or you don’t / Whether we get on it / Or we don’t”, her voice a slackened, licentious sneer. Her proposition turns to delusion, convinced that only this other person could ever know her on the breathless, writhing techno of Can’t Replicate, one of the more straightforward songs here; imagining their union as something written in the stars in CooCool and The Universe.
And Murphy puts in the headiest performance of her life, revealing dimensions far beyond the stentorian disco maven of 2020’s Róisín Machine: she is ecstatically available on Fader as she admits “I lay eggs every single time I think of you”, harsh with self-loathing on Hurtz So Bad, a panicked blurt on The House, a doomed portrait of intimacy. There’s startling acceptance on the twinkling scrape of Eureka, about begging a doctor to cut this pain out of her; the sharpest bitterness on You Knew, a masterpiece of arid, throbbing, angry, forlorn dub-techno in which Murphy castigates the object of her desires for misleading her.
Her recriminations spill out in fast flurries, the speed eventually breaking them apart, like bits of a rocket falling off as it penetrates the atmosphere; Koze bounces her voice like a ball, letting it skid and skitter. The song is a cold burn, the anguished realisation that you’ve imagined yourself into a fantasy so intensely that you feel cheated of a reality that you never had in the first place. That sense of shattered illusions hits especially hard this week” – The Guardian
Key Cut: Fader
TEN: Jorja Smith – falling or flying
Release Date: 29th September
Label: FAMM
Producers: Blue May/DameDame*/Jodi Milliner/New Machine/P2J
Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/en-gb/product/jorja-smith/falling-or-flying-2
Standout Tracks: Try Me/Falling or flying/GO GO GO
Review:
“There’s always been something special about Jorja Smith. Since the Walsall-raised artist’s arrival in 2016 with her breakout hit ‘Blue Lights’, there’s been a certain magnetism about her: the voice is technically sensational, and there’s truth to every word sung. Early comparisons to Amy Winehouse, her idol, were not unwarranted, and her ability to resonate with listeners across the spectrum only blossomed.
Her 2018 debut ‘Lost & Found’ showcased that personality, if only in subtle ways: with the tasteful R&B and pop stylings, it felt like a safe first step to satiate the hype rather than a defining musical portrait. Musical collaborations with Drake, Burna Boy, and rising star Enny continued to build the star and myth around her.
It was 2021’s ‘Be Right Back’, a mid-pandemic mixtape, that simmered with Smith’s most intriguing material yet, like someone realising where their path was headed and how to harness it. She hasn’t looked back: ‘Falling or Flying’, her second studio album, is a triumph because of that conviction. Having decided that London was not conducive to her life and music-making, she moved back home to the Midlands, keen to rekindle the pre-fame Jorja that the industry didn’t want you to see but that existed every time the mic was off. In an accompanying statement, she says that formative years growing up in the industry had made her a “people pleaser” and that moving home helped her be “better at trusting myself, not doubting myself as much, and not being so affected and worried by other peoples’ opinions.”
On ‘Falling or Flying’, she teams up with DAMEDAME*, an emerging production duo who also happen to be Smith’s pals from back home; their presence is keenly felt, the trio coursing with ideas and freedom. From the mesmerising opener ‘Try Me’ to ‘Little Things’, a nod to UK funky that has potential to rival ‘On My Mind’ for her biggest dancefloor heater, ‘Falling or Flying’ reveals itself much like Solange’s 2019 album ‘When I Get Home’: an uncompromising and arresting treasure of a record. Even ‘Go Go Go’, a fairly formulaic, indie-indebted number, is the type of song that could only spring from febrile recording sessions with close confidantes: it’s not hard to picture the three thrashing along hard and laughing at each other above the din.
Scarcely any songs on ‘Falling or Flying’ sound the same, but the throughline of Smith trusting her gut remains and reconnecting with herself remains a guiding constant. ‘Greatest Gift’, a song about Smith reconnecting with her younger self, is as touching as she’s ever sounded as a pertinent message rings true: I promise to make sure you’ll never fall far from your grace / I hope that you know you are never too far from your purpose” she reminds herself. ‘Falling or Flying’ was the record she was destined to make, she just had to allow herself to get there” – NME
Key Cut: Greatest Gift
NINE: Corinne Bailey Rae – Black Rainbows
Release Date: 15th September
Labels: Black Rainbow/Thirty Tigers
Producer: S. J. Brown/Corinne Bailey Rae/Paris Strother
Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/en-gb/product/corinne-bailey-rae/black-rainbows-2
Standout Tracks: Black Rainbows/New York Transit Queen/Put It Down
Review:
“Her curiosity piqued by a photo of Theaster Gates taken in his workspace, Corinne Bailey Rae met the artist and activist the next time she played Chicago, where he welcomed her to the Stony Island Arts Bank, a gallery, archive, library, and community center. Bailey Rae felt profoundly affected inside the South Side monument to Black culture, and returned for an artist residency at the invitation of founder Gates. She wrote songs informed by her surroundings and experience -- everything from works of art to pages of Ebony and Jet to a dance party soundtracked by the preserved record collection of house pioneer Frankie Knuckles. Approaching the material as a side project had a liberating effect that allowed her to create without thinking about how the results would be received. Although Black Rainbows is a uniquely conceptual work and sticks all the way out from Corinne Bailey Rae, The Sea, and The Heart Speaks in Whispers, it's at least as personal as any of the singer's first three albums. Contrary to her reputation for making pillowy adult contemporary R&B, Bailey Rae started in a punk band that was hard enough to be courted by Roadrunner Records. Black Rainbows taps into that spirit more than once. "New York Transit Queen" is a thrashing celebration inspired by a mid-'50s image of future fashion legend Audrey Smaltz. "Erasure," seething and thunderous, was written in response to examining graphically anti-Black postcards. On these songs, Bailey Rae's buzzing guitar is as much a lead as her full-tilt vocals. Other moments -- the bristly, knocking, and wailing "Black Rainbows," the unfurling incantation "Before the Throne of the Invisible God" -- sound unselfconsciously sculpted, teeming with unbound imagination. The solitary piano ballad, "Peach Velvet Sky," is also a progression; written from the confined and anguished perspective of abolitionist and author Harriet Jacobs, it features Bailey's most powerful lyrics and vocal performance. The house diversions are suitably carefree, delightfully weird, and just as meaningful. A futuristic paradise is imagined in "Earthlings" through a slow, off-center groove slathered in guitar and concluded by birdsong. In the eight-minute "Put It Down," Bailey Rae achieves hard-fought release, distressed over turbulent strings and synthesizers, then seemingly indestructible as her voice slides atop a stout four-four rhythm. "I put it down -- I feel so free" could be the album's subtitle” – AllMusic
Key Cut: Peach Velvet Sky
EIGHT: Mitski – The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We
Release Date: 15th September
Label: Dead Oceans
Producer: Patrick Hyland
Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/en-gb/product/mitski/the-land-is-inhospitable-and-so-are-we-2
Standout Tracks: Buffalo Replaced/My Love Mine All Mine/Star
Review:
“Many musicians would give anything to have a sound at once so distinctive and multifaceted as Mitski’s, which explores a unique, fragile heartache just as capably through piano ballads as in glitchy synth stomps. ‘The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We’, her seventh record, is an achievement in that in such a diverse catalogue it manages to hatch its own identity without straying from her singular voice. ‘Bug Like An Angel’ clues in to a more subdued record populated by acoustic guitars and big vocal arrangements, but this is an illusion. Through songs that often seem to have bare-bones arrangements, the album becomes increasingly intense. For its entirety, guitars, pianos and whole orchestras are lost in vibrating soundscapes, and drums are rare. On ‘The Deal’, a lilting ballad morphs into an apocalyptic whirlwind, while ‘Star’ is at once discordant and glowing, as complex and delicate as anything off ‘Pet Sounds’. Taken individually these songs are all gorgeous, but as a whole they create an effect of being hemmed in by absence, that inhospitable land overwhelming in its minimalism. No other record today sounds so beautiful and full while being quite so sparse” – DIY
Key Cut: Bug Like an Angel
SEVEN: Lana Del Rey – Did you know that there's a tunnel under Ocean Blvd
Release Date: 24th March
Labels: Interscope/Polydor
Producers: Jack Antonoff/Benji/Zach Dawes/Lana Del Rey/Drew Erickson/Mike Hermosa
Standout Tracks: The Grants/A&W/Paris, Texas
Review:
“I’d go on a seven-minute rant with a repetitive melody,” Lana Del Rey recently told Billie Eilish in an interview about her writing process for Did You Know There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd. Indeed, many of the songs on her newly released ninth album do fit that description. They are long and can be repetitive, but truly, a rant has never sounded so alluring.
The six-time Grammy nominee, née Elizabeth Grant, returns this week with her latest album, two years on from a double release in 2021 (Chemtrails Over the Country Club and Blue Banisters). Across eight records and 11 years, Del Rey has built a world and iconography of her own. Hers is one of cherry cola cans, white sundresses, sycamore trees, seedy dive bars and American flags that fly both defiantly and depressingly. More controversial in the Lana lexicon are the deadbeat boyfriends with fast fists that feel like kisses. (Her previous record, she said, was a defensive work written in response to criticisms, including glamourising domestic abuse.)
Her sweeping, layered ninth album is more ruminative than reactive: questions of family and legacy, memory and death swirl around one another until they’re one and the same. To hear Del Rey tell it, Ocean Blvd is “straight vibing”, an exquisitely sung account of her innermost thoughts. And with them comes a new level of specificity. “The Grants” is a testament to that. The album’s opening track is steeped in memory – practically sepia-toned as she recalls “my sister’s firstborn child” and “my grandmother’s last smile” in one heart-pinching line. Lyrics on this album tend to rebound off its walls; echoes of one song appear in another and another. Del Rey’s question in “The Grants” – “Do you think about heaven?/ Do you think about me?” – rings in the next title track, as she implores again and again, “Don’t forget me”.
“Ocean Blvd” is a patient, building ballad that shouts out not only a Harry Nilsson song but a timecode (2.05) within it during which his voice breaks with emotion. There are comparable moments all over her own record. “Ocean Blvd” enters with a stoic piano and swelling strings. It’s impossible, though, not to bend your ear towards her muted breathing; that whoosh of air is like hearing the inside of a conch shell and imagining waves.
It’s an album populated with references. There’s the same kind that her work is always chock full of (John Denver, Forensic Files, a Marielle Heller movie, a three-star hotel chain, the Griffith observatory all make an appearance) but as on 2021’s Blue Banisters, there are personal details, too. Del Rey sings about her grandpa, her brother, her dad, her sister, her sister’s baby, her Uncle Dave. Meanwhile, the record’s themes of legacy spiral into questions of motherhood. “Will the baby be alright/ Will I have one of mine/ Can I handle it even if I do?” she asks on the tender, orchestra-backed “Fingertips”. That song, “Did You Know”, and three others were written in one sitting with ex-boyfriend, director and cinematographer Mike Hermosa, who features as a producer on the album. Del Rey has said it was her familiarity with Hermosa that allowed her to open up as much as she did; they wrote the songs together in her living room on voice memos.
None of this is to say that Del Rey has put away her box of Lana-isms for good. Brazen lyrics such as “F*** me to death/ Love me until I love myself” would feel easily at home on her 2012 trip-hop debut Born to Die. Her winking braggadocio is intact on “Sweet” as she jeers “If you want some basic b****, go to the Beverly Centre and find one”. Images of “bruised knees”, “palm trees in black and white” and “skipping rope in the bayou” crop up, as predictable and familiar as Del Rey calling her paramour “baby”.
Did You Know is a 77-minute-long endeavour. And with a hefty chunk of its 16 tracks dedicated to similar swooning balladry, time doesn’t exactly fly. There is some pleasure to be taken in the trance-like way these songs flow into one another, but watching the tide of even the most beautiful ocean becomes boring. Thankfully, the water does get choppy at times. Take “A&W”, its title both a reference to an American fast food chain and an acronym for American Whore. What begins with the soft strum of a guitar and the heavy step of a piano is a folky reverie not unlike those found on 2021’s Chemtrails Over the Country Club. The masterfully slow fade at its four-minute mark, however, gives way to a sleazy, synthy bassline and later, an adult-rated interpolation of a 1959 doo-wop sample best known from Tom Hanks’s kids’ movie Big. The second half of the seven-minute track plays like an alien transmission from an entirely different Lana era. It’s thrilling – a testament to how an artist’s so-called eras are only as rigid as they want to be. “Fishtail” and “Peppers” – which features a sampled hook from a live performance by Canadian rapper Tommy Genesis – are similar treats. The latter track is a swaggering rap mashed-up into psych-rock. If only Del Rey’s voice wasn’t completely drowning in reverb.
This being a Lana record, a lot of it is about love. The familial kind, the platonic kind, the romantic kind. Album highlight “Margaret” is a pure paean to the latter. With its lovey-dovey lyrics (“’Cause when you know you know”) about finding The One, it is heartbreaking to learn that the song isn’t about Del Rey herself. It was written for her producer, the Bleachers’ Jack Antonoff, and his actor fiancée, Margaret Qualley. Elsewhere, there is love of the religious kind. Del Rey, who was raised Catholic, enlists the help of gospel singers in a number of songs, as well as pastor-to-the-stars Judah Smith, whose four-minute sermon forms one of the album’s two interludes. Jon Batiste heads up the other.
The album ends appropriately on “Taco Truck x VB”. Another reworking of a past Lana era. This time, it’s more explicit. Here, her nine-minute soft-rock lullaby “Venice B****” from 2018’s high-water mark Norman F***ing Rockwell! gets a grimier, trappier remix. Admittedly, there is something of the original lost in this new version, but it’s an audacious thing to sample yourself – and with a back catalogue as deep and sprawling as Del Rey’s undoubtedly is, it’s ripe for the picking” – The Independent
Key Cut: Kintsugi
SIX: Caroline Polachek – Desire, I Want to Turn Into You
Release Date: 14th February
Labels: Sony Music/The Orchard/Perpetual Novice
Producers: Caroline Polachek/Danny L Harle/Dan Nigro/Jim-E Stack/Sega Bodega/Ariel Rechtshaid
Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/en-gb/product/caroline-polachek/desire-i-want-to-turn-into-you-2
Standout Tracks: Welcome to My Island/Fly to You/Billions
Review:
“The tight 12-track collection is doe-eyed, confident, and sonically varied – not only is it wholly different from its predecessor, it’s a portrait of someone in love. From its opening screams welcoming the listener to her world, Desire, I Want to Turn Into You is an island where romance is meshed with clearly focus artistic vision.
Much more here than on Pang, Polachek writes almost as if to determine what sounds good sonically, instead of having songs with a clear thesis. The effect is lurid and fable-like, as if she’s telling you myths instead of truths, to the point where it can often be difficult to discern what a song is really about. Not necessarily a criticism – but on “Bunny Is a Rider,” she sings that it’s “dirty like it’s Earth Day / Tryna wet that palette,” and on the twinkling closer “Billions,” she describes herself as “Psycho / Priceless / Good in a crisis.” Okay, sure! Her abstractness is an asset: these songs read more like poetry, the sonnets she describes in “Billions.” She’s been vocal about this stream-of-consciousness style, particularly on “Pretty In Possible,” which advances almost as if she’s making it up on the spot.
Amongst these dreamy, loose works are ones rooted in the present – usually love-drenched song of longing and passion. “Fly to You,” which manages to balance features from both Grimes and Dido, shows someone vulnerable enough to go to their partner instead of retreating within themselves; “Crude Drawing of an Angel” is a snapshot of messy mid-morning beauty; and “I Believe” uses its stadium-bright synths to picture yearning at its highest form: “Violent love / Feel my embrace.” The best of which – and perhaps the album’s finest moment – is “Blood and Butter,” which could easily slot into a video game soundtrack centred in a cave. Backed by her own vocals, guitars, and bagpipes(!), she’s in awe of the body aura and gravity of her partner: “Look at you all mythicalogica land Wikipediated,” she sings, inventing words and emotions only she could create. “I don’t need no entertaining / When the world is a bed,” she admits, later revealing that she wants to get closer to her partner than their new tattoo. It’s otherworldly, blending the bizarre and romantic in pure Polachek fashion.
Desire operates at a higher caliber than Pang – it’s almost as if she’s gotten the ‘accessible’ music out of her system (if you could even call it that) and has made ample room to experiment with her own creativity. It makes sense that these songs exist in the liminal – she even admits that “real life is a rumor” in the slow-burn “Hopedrunk Everlasting.” In an ode to her late father on “Welcome to My Island,” too, she reckons with her distinctive creative process: “He says watch your ego, watch your head, girl / … Go forget the rules, forget your friends / Just you and your reflection.”
Polachek does things on her second effort that most artists never dream of achieving. A clear mastermind at work, her brilliance is in every nook and cranny of each song. The attention to detail – whether it be the layering on “Sunset” or “Blood and Butter,” or vocal melodies that branch between songs and albums – make her one of the most innovative artists today. The desire she sought to turn into on the title track is fully realised in these mesmerising and wholly unique soundscapes” – The Line of Best Fit
Key Cut: Crude Drawing of An Angel
FIVE: Jessie Ware – That! Feels Good!
Release Date: 28th April
Label: EMI
Producers: James Ford/Stuart Price
Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/en-gb/product/jessie-ware/that-feels-good
Standout Tracks: Free Yourself/Begin Again/Beautiful People
Review:
“Jessie Ware, the British quadruple threat—powerhouse singer, author, podcaster, and children's fashion magnate—has spent the last few years reading up on queer history, and is looking to her forebears for inspiration. Disco is a long-explored touchstone for excess and emancipation, and the genre, or at least the concept of the genre, has certainly taken hold of the modern pop milieu, whether Beyoncé’s full-body immersions, Dua Lipa’s corpo-rave pleasers, or Lizzo’s feel-good bass funk. But That! Feels Good!, Ware’s fifth album, stretches beyond vibes and delves into the well-oiled mechanics of bands like Chic, Sister Sledge, the Trammps, and a little P-Funk, opening up the hood and pulling out all the parts to see if she can piece them back together. Alongside disco-savvy producers like Stuart Price (aka Thin White Duke/Jacques Lu Cont) and James Ford (Simian Mobile Disco), as well as co-songwriters Shungudzo Kuyimba and Sarah Hudson, Ware has achieved a rare feat: a genre revival album that’s painstakingly true to its source material, but doesn’t sound like a curdled rehash. This has everything to do with Ware’s unfailingly strong vocals—one of her generation’s preeminent white belters—and the wild joy she emits on every track, with a thesis that le freaking it on the dancefloor and in the bedroom is key to liberation, and that love alone will save the day.
Disco is familiar territory for Ware—2020’s What’s Your Pleasure looked towards Giorgio Moroder’s blueprint for arpeggiated synths and light-up dancefloor grooves, helping kickstart pop music’s disco revival. That! Feels Good! is a grittier affair, reminiscent of the small underground disco clubs of the early ’70s at individual apartments and lofts in downtown New York. Accompanied live by the preternaturally tight eight-piece funk/Afrobeat band Kokoroko, which has the freewheeling but precise instrumentation of disco down to a science, Ware floats into the sweet spot for her elastic soul vocals, somewhere between Donna Summer and Teena Marie: a glamorous libertine we’ll follow into any dingy club so she can show us the light.
It helps that Ware is a true believer, underscoring That! Feels Good!’s title track with a command that’s almost militant: “Freedom is a sound, and pleasure is a right. Do it again.” Like Donna Summer before her, she eliminates the distance between dancefloor ecstasy and sexual pleasure, suggesting an imperceptible difference between the two. With the thrust of funk bass and spontaneous yelps, she also conjures the physical release of a Soul Train line, transported by syncopation. And when she belts, “Why don’t you please yourself? If it feels so good then don’t you, baby! Don’t you stop!” she revels in the sensual prerogative of adult womanhood, of spiritual excess, staking out her own joyful territory. (She also suggests, over the driving piano of “Free Yourself,” that rapture doesn’t necessarily require a partner.) Her confidence fizzes and levitates with an assuredness that feels deserved but hard-won. “I’ve always relied on people that believe in me because maybe I haven’t believed in myself enough,” she told Pitchfork of her past experiences with music industry men, “but now, actually, I do, which is really wonderful.”
Having reached the point where she can own her vast talent, she’s in a position to extend the favor. On “Beautiful People,” she drops a perfect pride anthem, channeling her existential angst—“I wake up in the morning and I ask myself, ‘What am I doing on this planet?’”—into a purple leather outfit and a cocktail party. “Mix your joy with misery,” she reasons, before deciding that “beautiful people are everywhere.” It’s a vibrant exhortation fueled by cowbell and the band’s robust horn section, mining the eternal solution to life’s indignities—the dancefloor, with friends—and a song dying for a drag queen to lip-sync it. (Whither Sasha Colby!)
Largely, though, Ware’s focus is on the corporeal, celebrating self-determination and sexual versatility with cheeky metaphor: bottles that pop, lips that are underworked, and the mother of all innuendo, pearls. (She also works in time-tested double entendres of food and humping, linking her career interests by invoking limes, strawberries, and pink champagne.) On “Pearls,” she conjures the soul arias of Chaka Khan with another paean to dancing until your insecurities are moot and your clothes are in a pile. “Freak Me Now” ups the cosmopolitan allure by introducing French touch and a distinctly computerized synth whorl to the equation. While it steps away slightly from the ’70s lane Ware has so carefully carved, it sits comfortably among the analog piano and string jaunts. The only other track outside That! Feels Good!’s classic disco-ball rubric is “Lightning,” where Rhodes, strings, and layered harmonies sit next to a pitch-shifted vocal flourish and a boom-bap beat that zooms you right ahead to 2016. It’s a lovely song because Ware is an exceptional vocalist, but it takes you out of the fantasy, which any actor or drag queen can tell you is a mortal mistake.
But overall, That! Feels Good! stays focused on a mission that never feels like a chore. In its relatively brief 40-minute runtime, Ware takes her task extremely seriously, but she’s unencumbered by its immensity; actually, it seems to unleash her, as she experiments with vocal tricks—smoky, Grace Jonesian talk-singing; spirit-catching falsetto that’ll absolutely melt off your Halston—with the sure knowledge that the good-time, nighttime prima donna was always who she was meant to be” – Pitchfork
Key Cut: Pearls
FOUR: Olivia Rodrigo – GUTS
Release Date: 8th September
Label: Geffen
Producer: Dan Nigro
Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/en-gb/product/olivia-rodrigo/guts-3
Standout Tracks: all-american bitch/vampire/get him back!
Review:
“Olivia Rodrigo knocked it out of the park on her first try, with her instant classic of a debut, Sour. So expectations have been sky-high for her next move. But the suspense is over: Her excellent new Guts is another instant classic, with her most ambitious, intimate, and messy songs yet. Olivia’s pop-punk bangers are full of killer lines (“I wanna meet your mom, just to tell her her son sucks”), but she pushes deeper in powerful ballads like “Logical.” All over Guts, she’s so witty, so pissed off, so angsty at the same time, the way only a rock star can be. And this is the album of a truly brilliant rock star.
As on Sour, O-Rod co-wrote the songs with her trusty collaborator-producer Dan Nigro. Last time she kicked off the album with the question, “I’m so sick of 17/Where’s my fucking teenage dream?” This time, she signs off with the ballad “Teenage Dream,” lamenting, “I’m sorry that I couldn’t always be your teenage dream.” But it’s America’s sweetheart blowing up into the self-proclaimed “All-American Bitch” and getting a few things off her mind. As she declares from the start, “I’ve got the sun in my motherfucking pocket.”
Rodrigo avoids all the typical second-album pitfalls — no songs about how fame is stressful, no songs about social media. The great lead single, “Vampire,” turns out to be a total outlier, because it’s the only song that goes for a celebrity-life angle. Instead, she focuses on the topic she really cares about as a songwriter: the gawky, insecure, ordinary American Every-Girl we met in “Driver’s License.” All over Guts, she shows off her amazing flair for detailed storytelling, making each line feel like she’s just spilling it out, one pained confession at a time.
“All-American Bitch” kicks it off with a fantastic pop-punk angst rant, with a title from Joan Didion, picking up where “Brutal” stopped. It’s full of slumber-party energy (“I’m light as a feather, stiff as a board”) as she sings about striving to live up to a perfect ideal (“I got class and integrity, just like a goddamn Kennedy”) but trying to hide her dark side. At the end, she sneers, “I’m grateful all the time/I’m sexy and I’m kind/I’m pretty when I cry.” (That line might feel like a shout-out to her pal Lana Del Rey.)
Her love life is brutal as ever, and she knows how to savor it as a great joke. In “Love Is Embarrassing,” she fumes, “You found a new version of me/And I damn near started World War 3.” But she’s always coming back for more, though she admits, “I’m planning out my wedding with some guy I’m never marrying.” The closest thing to a happy romantic connection is the ex she jumps in “Bad Idea Right,” who at least owns a bed.
“Get Him Back!!” rips into a bad-news boyfriend, with a brain-devouring pop-punk chorus and a Joan Jett-level air-guitar hook. Olivia goes full blast with putdowns like “He had an ego and a temper and a wandering eye/He said he’s 6-foot-2 and I’m like, dude, nice try.” She can’t decide whether she wants to “get him back” as in reuniting, or as in revenge, but she craves both at the same time, so she vows, “I wanna key his car/I wanna make him lunch/I wanna break his heart then be the one to stitch him up.” There’s also an intriguing personal aside when she quips, “I am my father’s daughter, so maybe I can fix him?”
But the best moments on Guts are her emotional piano ballads like “Logical,” “The Grudge,” and “Teenage Dream.” “Logical” is the most poignant and powerful moment on the album. Like so many of these songs, it’s the story of a young woman getting manipulated and humiliated by an older man. Rodrigo’s voice chokes with rage as she sings, “Said I was too young, I was too soft/Can’t take a joke, can’t get you off.” The song builds to the point where she sings the troubling line “I know I’m half responsible” (she’s not) and ends by asking herself, “Why didn’t I stop it all?”
“The Grudge” is at the same powerful level — she torments herself over a breakup, arguing with him when she’s alone in front of her bedroom mirror. As she sings, “I’m so tough when I’m alone/And I make you feel so guilty/And I fantasize about a time when you’re a little fucking sorry.” But she wonders why she couldn’t stand up for herself, confessing, “It takes strength to forgive, but I don’t feel strong.”
“Lacy” is a mournful lament about falling under the spell of a femme fantasy ideal, who’s a “dazzling starlet/Bardot reincarnate,” but turns out to be “made of angel dust.” (“Lacy” will be widely interpreted as a comment on alleged personal dramas she may or may not be having with another pop star, and Olivia does not exactly go out of her way to minimize this impression by singing, “I try, I try, I try.”)
“Pretty Isn’t Pretty” is a devastatingly candid exorcism of negative body image (“it’s in the phone, it’s in my head, it’s in the boys I bring to bed”) and the way it does damage to every level of life. As she sings, “I bought all the clothes that they told me to buy/I chased some dumb ideal my whole fucking life.” She goes into a different type of pain in “Making the Bed,” where she’s “getting drunk at the club with my fair-weather friends.” The former Disney princess is now old enough to go party with the chic set, ordering different drinks at the same bars, “another day pretending I’m older than I am.” But she wonders why this version of adulthood is no fun. She also confesses to having nightmares where she’s driving in the city. Weirdly, it’s one of the only moments on the album where Ms. I Drive Alone Past Your Street uses her drivers’ license.
Nigro’s production has all the punch and gloss of Sour, but also the knack for tension-and-release hooks he’s shown ever since his emo band As Tall As Lions. The bops go for a 1980s synth/guitar New Wave chug a la the Cars or the Go-Go’s, though you can hear surprisingly detailed echoes of Missing Persons (“Love Is Embarrassing”) or the Motels (“Pretty Isn’t Pretty”).
“Teenage Dream” ends Guts with a massively powerful piano ballad. The title might be a salute to Katy Perry, but Olivia sings about a very different kind of teenage dream. She comes clean about being a troubled ingenue, heading into her twenties, but wondering why she’s still bringing all her same old doubt and confusion. As she sings, “Only 19, but I fear they already got the best parts of me.” “Teenage Dream” evokes the pensive tone of “Nothing New,” Taylor Swift’s Red vault duet with Phoebe Bridgers, with a litany of questions. Olivia asks, “When am I gonna stop being wise beyond my years, and just start being wise? When am I gonna stop being a pretty young thing to guys?”
The song never settles on an answer, but it soars into a Oasis-worthy piano-anthem crescendo. Olivia Rodrigo might not have her awkward teenage blues all figured out just yet. But all over Guts, she proves that she’s a voice that’s here to stay and a songwriter built to last” – Rolling Stone
Key Cut: bad idea right?
THREE: Kylie Minogue – Tension
Release Date: 22nd September
Labels: Darenote/BMG
Producers: Duck Blackwell/Cutfather/Jackson Foote/Jon Green/Oliver Heldens/KayAndMusic/Lostboy/PhD/Biff Stannard
Standout Tracks: Padam Padam/You Still Get Me High/10 Out of 10
Review:
“Going two-for-two with early-2020s knockouts, global dancefloor queen Kylie Minogue moves the party from the shiny mirrorball disco to the sweaty, neon-lit club on the flawless Tension. Breaking that titular seal, this set is custom-made for living in the moment and embracing cathartic release, providing 11 laser-focused opportunities for sheer exhilaration. Taking additional cues from Fever and Aphrodite, Tension focuses on the light and happiness found through dance, proving once again that Minogue is peerless when it comes to unassuming crowd-pleasers, heard most explicitly on the surprise 2023 hit "Padam Padam." Carried by her catchiest chorus in decades, the unstoppable earworm pops through woozy production as a hypnotic groove throbs beneath the surface. She purrs that "I'll be in your head all weekend," and that's only partially true: like her defining 2001 single, listeners won't soon be able to get "Padam Padam" out of their heads. From there, Tension doesn't relent. The encouraging uplift of "Hold On to Now" sparkles like "All the Lovers," building to a joyous chorus atop intergalactic synths and subtle New Order-esque guitar noodling. The funky, bass-laden "One More Time," the playful Doja Cat-meets-Dua Lipa "Hands," and the saxophone-infused "Green Light" keep a platformed heel on the Disco dancefloor, as '80s-inspired bops like "Things We Do for Love" and the unfolding "You Still Get Me High" shift gears to hyperspeed with urgent singalong choruses, decade-appropriate synths, and dramatic sax breaks. On-trend, Tension lands in the '90s, updating that familiar house sound for the 2020s on the sensual title track (with another chorus for the ages) and the ballroom-ready "10 Out of 10" produced by Oliver Heldens. Even the heartwarming closer "Story" maintains the energy without sacrificing emotion, a swelling love letter to herself and her loyal fans that pushes Minogue's voice to joyous new heights. Much like Disco, Tension is a master class in pop wizardry and escapist bliss. Releasing an album this expertly crafted and stunning in her fifth decade in the business is an absolute wonder to behold” – AllMusic
Key Cut: Tension
TWO: boygenius – the record
Release Date: 31st March
Label: Interscope
Producers: boygenius/Catherine Marks
Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/en-gb/product/boygenius-2/the-record-5
Standout Tracks: Without You Without Them/Cool About It/Not Strong Enough
Review:
“The opening line of boygenius’ ‘the record’ doubles as a thesis statement for the album: “Give me everything you got / I’ll take what I can get / I want to hear your story and be a part of it”. On ‘Without You Without Them’ Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus harmonise a sincere request, their voices taking on complimentary choral tones to create the shape of a timeless Americana folk song: it is haunting, beautiful and piercingly vulnerable. You have to have radically honest to start an album with a song like this, an acknowledgement that you want to be known deeply and meet others at that depth as well, but as ‘the record’ proves, boldness is something boygenius have in droves.
The supergroup began working on ‘the record’ back in 2020, two years after the surprise release of their debut self-titled EP. Since then, the trio have been busy making and touring music of their own, positioning themselves as generation-defining songwriters, picking up Grammy nominations, high-profile collaborations and the respect of their peers along the way. Somehow however, just a week after Bridgers’ critically-acclaimed second album ‘Punisher’ dropped, they found time to flirt with the idea of getting the band together again, sharing demos, asking questions and collapsing their individual songwriting and musical propensities into something new. They are a supergroup worth their salt, and one that take on extra powers when working together.
The opening four songs came from solo writing, but they work as stylish introductions into their distinct styles. Baker brought in the frolicking and erratic ‘$20’, as a means for the band to have “more sick riffs” according to accompanying liner notes. “It’s a bad idea and I’m all about it” she sings amidst a chugging riff before threatening, “when you wake up I’ll be gone again”. When Bridgers and Dacus join in, a wall of emotion and delicate sounds form around Baker’s endeavour.
For Bridgers, it was ‘Emily I’m Sorry’, her slow-burning strumming and repetitive apologies demonstrating proclivity for melancholy love songs. And then, Dacus’ ‘True Blue’ which comes with acute observations on relationships: “When you don’t know who you are / You fuck around and find out” she sings, eventually resolving “It feels good to be known so well / I can’t hide from you like I hide from myself.” Dacus writes with so much emotion it hurts; Bridgers oscillates from cynical to sincere; Baker’s piercing vocals make even the most ironic line feel genuine. Each boygenius may have separate artistic aims, but their talents coalesce to hit you right where it hurts.
Recorded at Malibu’s Shangri-La studios, the trio leveraged 10-hour days and pieced the LP together over a month, taking turns writing lines and making changes, allowing each other’s neurosis and perfectionism to guide the album’s phrasings and sound. The result is some of the most pristine songwriting Bridgers, Dacus and Baker have ever penned. The acoustic ‘Leonard Cohen’ shines a light on the inner workings of their friendship, the cracks that let the light in, in-jokes about “writing horny poetry”. The brash and witty ‘Satanist’ focuses on the limits of unconditional relationships, wondering if nihilism or satanism are deal breakers or would you, as my friend, just join in.
The band shines in the stripped-back moments of ‘the record’, but one of its brightest achievements comes halfway through, in the layering, arrangements and vocals of ‘Not Strong Enough’. It swings in like a typical indie love song at first, but towards the end of the tack, as the trio spirals out the words “always an angel never a god” in unison followed by a heartbreaking, voice crackling “I don’t know why I am / The way that I am”. Masterful stuff.
This debut is a gorgeous testament to what can happen when you allow yourself to fully be seen. Though each of the album’s 12 tracks could have fit nicely on one of their personal records, their work together takes on a brighter bolder existence, enabling them to light up individually and together at the same time. Bridgers, Dacus and Baker did the tedious work of getting to know each other artistically and collaboratively and then poured what they found out into the world. Now, we as listeners, get to benefit” – NME
Key Cut: Satanist
ONE: Iraina Mancini – Undo the Blue
Release Date: 18th August
Label: Needle Mythology
Producers: Jagz Kooner/Erol Alkan/Sunglasses for Jaws/Simon Dine/J.B Pilon/Ian Barter
Buy: https://needlemythology.tmstor.es/?ffm=FFM_fa0cd214aff8840f1859e65d11c2ae20
Standout Tracks: Cannonball/Sugar High/What You Doin’
Review:
“What does it sound like?:
What’s this? You ask. Dave Ross reviewing a new album? If the world wasn’t crazy enough already in 2023 this is too much. Let me explain. It’s no secret that as a hobbyist music writer Pete Paphides is the writer I wish I could have been. Fair to say I’m a bit of a fanboy. I mean I’m not about to turn up at his house or turn my living room into a shrine like the guy from Alan Partridge but I love his writing style. His love of ABBA, encyclopaedic music knowledge (he once referenced King’s Taste Of Your Tears as a good thing. I know!) and his general niceness is all the more reason to love him. Broken Greek is the book I wish I could write weaving as it does personal stories with the music of the time. However, full disclosure here. On Twitter he’s been bloody relentless and not a little annoying about Iraina Mancini and her debut album on his Needle Mythology label. Anyway, out of interest as it clearly means a huge amount to Pete I gave it a listen. I mean it must be good if it’s got Pete’s name attached right?
Iraina is a striking young woman with as I discovered an incredibly listenable voice. It also turns out her father, Warren Peace, was a childhood friend of David Bowie’s who contributed to several of Bowie’s albums and tours. So she was raised around a broad range of music beyond her 34 years as again I was about to discover.
The first song Deep End has an incredible brass intro and becomes a driving, breathless opener in the style of Republica’s Ready To Go. It certainly got me interested. Iraina gives us a 90s vocal masterclass. Intense and dramatic. OK, I’m in.
Cannonball is more of the same putting me in mind of Garbage this time. I suspected this was where Iraina’s influence lies before I found out more about her. It’s an era that almost passed this 80s boy by but this song has that voice, guitars, organ, passion and plenty of hooks to drag me along.
Sugar High is a lovely shift in styles. Jazzy and dreamy. Iraina’s voice sounds amazing and my crazy brain is getting Olivia Newton John pre-Grease during the chorus. Imagine Olivia doing a Style Council or Blow Monkeys song and we’re there. The string arrangement is exquisite. This is absolutely lovely.
The title track is another smooth delicious piece of pop. I’m going back to Dusty now or Lenny Kravitz doing It Ain’t Over. In fact, such is the range displayed here there it goes from those unlikely sisters Swing Out and Shakespears. It has a fabulous crescendo moment, harmonies and swoon. Some song this.
Do It (You Stole The Rhythm) and we’re back in the 90s with a baggy rhythmed slightly underwhelming song only elevated by Iraina’s voice. Maybe it’s a grower, a slow burner lost in an inferno.
My Umbrella has more than enough hooks for any one song. It’s the Astrud Gilberto moment. Even my old hips are moving (in their own time but moving none the less). I need a hot day, a fast car and an open road to seal the deal on this song. Ooh it’s very good.
Shotgun could be the theme to a smart 60s / 70s detective thriller. It’s no Shaft but it has that smokey late, hot New York night vibe. If Netflix don’t start developing Shotgun on the back of this then they’re not really trying. If Regé-Jean Page doesn’t get Bond somebody send him this song.
What You Doin’? Annoys me in a good way. I’m failing because there’s a 70s glam song in there that wants its groove back and I can’t bloody get what song it is. Suzi Quatro maybe? Showaddwaddy? Can someone help? I am also afraid that What You Doin’? the monster earworrm it is will be rattling round my head at 2 am denying me sleep. Especially if I can’t find what it reminds me of.
Need Your Love is, surprise surprise, a love song with a feel of a Bond theme. A great showcase for Iraina’s vocal range but doesn’t really get going until a lovely spoken section. I will grow to love it I’m sure. Just needs more listens.
In a flash we are at the last song Take A Bow. Come on Iraina let’s finish on a high. She goes back to the 60s again. Join her and float on a gorgeous ride through the great chanteuse of our time. Pick out the voice of your choice it’s in there somewhere. Take A Bow Indeed
What does it all *mean*?
I’d seen so much about this album on Twitter that it had become like white noise. I came to it with quite a bit of negativity. Come on then, prove you’ve worth all the fuss. I should have trusted Pete. This is something very special that I wouldn’t have listened to without the relentless plugging. Maybe this is the album that will prove to me that despite me being so entrenched musically there is other stuff out there for me. New stuff. You know that special place you always wanted to go but just couldn’t bring yourself to Dave? It’s right here now go and find some more. Cheers Pete. And Iraina obviously.
Goes well with…
Anything really. It’s the sort of album you could put on anywhere and it will lift yours and the mood of anyone listening. Dare I mention Sade here?” – The Afterword
Key Cut: Undo the Blue