FEATURE:
National Album Day 2021
IN THIS PHOTO: Laura Mvula
The Best Albums of This Year Made by Women
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THAT title might seem random…
IN THIS PHOTO: Olivia Rodrigo
but, as this year’s National Album Day focuses on the best music made by women across the years, I wanted to put out a feature. Before going on, here is what’s happening with National Album Day today (16th October):
“National Album Day returns for its fourth year on October 16th 2021, and this time the theme is 'Celebrating Women in Music'!
National Album Day will be teaming up broadcast partner BBC Sounds and audio partner Bowers & Wilkins to celebrate the album format and the incredible albums made by women from across the decades.
There are special products, events, and as always, some famous faces helping to promote National Album Day along the way.
National Album Day was first celebrated in 2018 to praise the album format. After all, we've enjoyed over 70 years of albums; classic, life-changing, first, influential and even the ones we couldn't live without. Albums mean different things to different people – but there is no denying the huge impact they’ve not only had on our lives but on British pop-culture as we know it”.
I was going to do a feature consisting of my favourite albums by women ever. I have put something similar out in the past. I am listening to a lot of great albums by women; many of them are from the 1970s-1990s. Instead, I want to look at this year and the phenomenal music put out by women. As with the past few years, the very best and most memorable albums have been released by women. To honour that, I have selected my favourite albums from 2021 released by women. In all cases, I would urge people to explore the albums – as they are very good and definitely differ from one another! To honour the aim and much-needed topic of discussion for National Album Day, here are some remarkable albums from this year…
IN THIS PHOTO: St. Vincent/PHOTO CREDIT: Zackery Michael
MADE by brilliant women.
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Billie Marten - Flora Fauna
Release Date: 21st May
Label: Fiction
Producer: Rich Cooper
Standout Tracks: Garden of Eden/Pigeon/Kill the Clown
Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/billie-marten/flora-fauna/lp-plus
Review:
“Billie Marten’s second album, Feeding Seahorses by Hand, saw her take risks her debut had not foretold. Flora Fauna, her new full-length offering, raises the stakes even higher: Marten is more adventurous than ever, and she sounds more eager to step into the light.
If there was any doubt this moment was Marten’s to claim, the album quickly dissipates all of it with its opening salvo. “Garden of Eden” lets a hunger Marten’s first two records slowly built up towards resonate far and wide, calling attention to a charge of rolling drums led by hushed vocals and an enthralling bass line. “Look at me / I’m a flower in springtime,” Marten demands, ready to take center stage once and for all.
The collection of tracks display how adept at games of tension-and-release Marten has become. She pulls the listener close in songs like “Heaven”, “Ruin” and “Garden of Eden”, her voice immediately embracing the mike before arrangements brighten and relinquish their hold on the listener for oxymoronically spacious choruses.
Marten’s songwriting has matured beyond the trepidations of youth, building on Feeding Seahorses by Hand’s first hints of urgency. “Creature of Mine” opens with the grim “Old Mother Nature says it’s all getting worse”, echoing the songwriter’s long-standing concerns with our relationship with nature - one she cherishes so much she named her album after it. She also sings about the fear of being outside at night as a woman in the ominous “Human Replacement”, a track only made more potent by the tragic death of Sarah Everard in London in March and the subsequent national outpouring of grief and anger.
If album closer “Aquarium” and its sparse instrumentation, alludes to her bare-bones debut, most of Flora Fauna is devoted to entirely new musical ventures. Following Feeding Seahorses by Hand’s experimental variations of the folk music Marten roots her craft in, Rich Cooper - who also produced Writing of Blues and Yellows - and Marten are willing to take compositions one step further.
For one, there’s the alt-rock menace of “Human Replacement”, a strange beast whose production tricks bear resemblance to that of another Billie and her brother Finneas. From there we’re led into “Liquid Love”, a ticking bedroom pop lullaby that sounds inspired by the lethargic end of James Blake’s catalog, and then into an incredibly refreshing juxtaposition of oriental riffs, a buzzing electronic backdrop, and a melody that reminds of indie folk-rock superstar Sharon Van Etten’s recent work in “Heaven”.
Three albums deep into the game, Marten has grown into the artist she is today with more trial than error. Radiohead reminiscent standout “Kill The Clown” is the perfect case in point, weaving audible threads of improvisation that blur the line between jazz, folk, rock and pop. It’s a rich tapestry of sounds that comes straight from the heart. That might be Marten’s secret ingredient: no matter how left-field the compositions are, whether warming or breaking, there’s always a lot of heart in the music” – The Line of Best Fit
Key Cut: Human Replacement
Billie Eilish – Happier Than Ever
Release Date: 30th July
Labels: Darkroom/Interscope
Producer: Finneas
Standout Tracks: My Future/Not My Responsibility/Happier Than Ever
Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/billie-eilish/happier-than-ever/lp-plus-x2
Review:
“Take the killer one-two of previous singles ‘NDA’ and ‘Therefore I Am’, which segue seamlessly into each other here. The former pulses along, drip-feeding tidbits about Billie’s inner world (“Had a pretty boy over but he couldn’t stay / On his way out, made him sign an NDA”), while the latter - one of the record’s more swaggering bangers - is utterly cutthroat towards a pretender to her throne (“I don’t want press to put your name next to mine / We’re on different lines…”). They mark two frequent lyrical avenues in Eilish’s second: a celebratory embrace of her sexuality and a refusal to let her life be dictated by negative forces weighing in on her.
Opener ‘Getting Older’ sets out her stead for an album that never shies away from addressing the singer’s increasingly singular situation. The only people who could make a subtly whomping beat anything aside from an oxymoron, it immediately transports you back into Billie and Finneas’ sonic world, thematically noting that it’s not all roses before actively choosing joy: “I’m happier than ever, at least, that’s my endeavor / To keep myself together and prioritise my pleasure.” Then there’s ‘I Didn’t Change My Number’, the spiritual successor to ‘Bad Guy’ (“Maybe you should leave before I get too mean?”), that instead swaps hushed menace for a vocal tone that’s seductive and powerful.
Indeed, as a whole ‘Happier Than Ever’ is a far warmer, more tactile record than its predecessor. Where the aesthetics of her debut were steeped in the macabre, Billie’s second is softer - musically and visually. Single ‘my future’ is a heavenly thing, a heart-swellingly gorgeous piano offering that begs to be played in a low-lit jazz bar, while ‘Halley’s Comet’ rings with the same soaring sensibilities that made Lana Del Rey’s ‘The Greatest’ such a success. The familiar, Latin beat on ‘Billie Bossa Nova’, meanwhile, makes the hot-under-the-collar content of its lyrics even steamier.
Two of the album’s highlights come in starkly different packages. ‘Oxytocin’’s juddering beats and disorientating vocals are the kind of strange, prickly track that no-one else in the world could come up with right now: a combination that’s technically jarring, but that somehow coalesces into a banger that will absolutely kick off on the live stage. Album midpoint ‘Not My Responsibility’, meanwhile, is a spoken word rumination on the scrutiny Eilish faces daily - a stark, unadorned speech that forces the listener to look it in the eye.
‘Happier Than Ever’, then, is not just a triumph in progressing a signature sound into new territories, but a lesson in how to own your reality with confidence and class. Billie Eilish had already cemented herself as a once-in-a-generation young talent - turns out watching her grow is just as thrilling a journey” – DIY
Key Cut: Therefore I Am
Little Simz - Sometimes I Might Be Introvert
Release Date: 3rd September
Labels: Age 101/AWAL
Producers: Inflo/Jakwob/Miles James
Standout Tracks: I Love You, I Hate You/Rollin Stone/Protect My Energy
Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/little-simz/sometimes-i-might-be-introvert
Review:
“Delivering yet another Album of the Week, Simbiatu Abisola Abiola Ajikawo is continuing her evolution. Spanning 15 epic tracks punctuated by four interludes and only three features (Cleo Sol and Obongjayar, alongside a spoken word contribution from Emma Corrin), Sometimes I Might Be Introvert is a bright example of both authenticity and creativity.
Calling Simz simply a ‘rapper’ would be to ignore the skills and abilities she exudes within art as a whole, including but not limited to: acting, directing, and writing. Granting a window into the true origins of hip-hop music jazz, blues, soul, funk, rock ’n’ roll and gospel, Sometimes I Might Be Introvert is a roulette board of sounds and imagery, surprising with every turn. Scored out of an immeasurable imagination, it centres her experiences as an artist with over a decade of experience and knowledge in the music world.
With Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, Little Simz has switched a dial on her TV set, going from black and white to technicolour. While her last outing - 2019’s GREY Area - pictured her in the dark and vulnerable, now we find her in the loudest of yellows holding herself on a wooden throne. Although Simz may represent so much confidence and bravado, the title reminds us that being an introvert and empath are her greatest allies.
Going by the two singles and accompanying visuals premiered in the last few months, Sometimes was always going to be a project bubbling with grand almost shocking musical power - and deliver it does. From the brass to the strings, Simz’s compositions - and production by Inflo - are so mighty that they would make a classical composer blush, and there’s none more powerful than the rallying war cry horns of “Introvert” - Simz’s call to arms.
As Sometimes progresses, while any past work of Little Simz's has been full of fighting talk, it becomes clear that this is an album made to properly showcase her versatility, voice and soul. Talking family, trauma, the industry and her peers, Sometimes I Might Be Introvert is tactical, theatrical, and is the product of 100,000 hours spent honing her craft resulting in a body of work with heart, and its head firmly on its shoulders” – The Line of Best Fit
Key Cut: Woman (ft. Cleo Sol)
Laura Mvula – Pink Noise
Release Date: 2nd July
Label: Atlantic
Producers: Laura Mvula/Dann Hume
Standout Tracks: Safe Passage/Church Girl/Magical
Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/laura-mvula/pink-noise/lp
Review:
“Getting dropped by a label is practically a rite of passage for an artist, but it's likely that Laura Mvula is the only one to receive the news by email after delivering a Top Ten U.K. debut and an Ivor Novello Award-winning follow-up, both of which were nominated for the Mercury Prize. That's where the singer, songwriter, and producer found herself in 2017. Four years later and with another major label, Atlantic instead of Sony, she rebounds with Pink Noise. It's a wounded if proud and defiant response that draws from vintage high-tech R&B and art pop -- the 1982-1987 era with greatest frequency -- with all sharp edges melted off. "Got Me" is all bounding romantic jubilance like Michael Jackson's "The Way You Make Me Feel." "Remedy" and "Pink Noise" work low-end cyclonic synthesizers recalling the System and Kashif. INXS-via-Chic guitar wriggles spring up in the latter and elsewhere. A soundtrack for a neon-rich film set in the mid-'80s would do well to feature "Safe Passage," an anthem of independence that gleams and pops, and the duet "What Matters," a tears-in-the-food-court love theme. Mvula's writing is typically to the contrary of what might otherwise sound like an escapist fantasy. The sting of rejection and betrayal, and regret over ceding control, are felt in many of the songs, though she's never so specific that the average listener can't relate. She laments "A provisional kindred soul/Another blow to the ego" in the prowling verses of "Conditional," confronts and teases a fraud in "Church Girl" with "How can you dance with the devil on your back," then delivers an unequivocal protest song with the urgent and scathing "Remedy." While all of those moments are remarkably powerful, Mvula finds another gear for "Golden Ashes," a pulsing and towering ballad that could fill a stadium. Born of dejection, it takes aim at "them scary power people" yet alludes to not just survival but immortality, her voice more robust than ever. "Lemons into lemonade" is an understatement” – AllMusic
Key Cut: Got Me
St. Vincent – Daddy’s Home
Release Date: 14th May
Label: Lorna Vista
Producers: Annie Clark/Jack Antonoff
Standout Tracks: Pay Your Way in Pain/Daddy's Home/My Baby Wants a Baby
Review:
“It’s all hugely impressive and striking, the familiar made subtly unfamiliar, Clark’s famously incendiary guitar playing spinning off at unexpected and occasionally atonal tangents, its effect simultaneously heady and disturbing. The implication seems to be that if Clark has been rifling through her father’s albums, they don’t sound the same to her as they once did: for whatever reason, the contents of his collection have taken on a warped, twisted quality.
The lyrics sound similarly unsettled, about everything from the prospect of parenthood – My Baby Wants a Baby wittily reworks the chorus of 9 to 5, Sheena Easton’s unironic 1980 paean to the pleasures of housewifery, slowing it to an agonised crawl in order to wrestle with the proverbial pram in the hall – to the very business of being St Vincent. For a decade now, Clark has invented a persona to inhabit on each new album: the “near-future cult leader” seated on a throne on the cover of 2014’s St Vincent, a latex-clad “dominatrix at a mental institution” for 2017’s Masseduction. There’s another on the cover of Daddy’s Home, in a blonde wig and stockings, the “benzo beauty queen” mentioned in the lyrics, who exudes such sleazy energy that, on opener Pay Your Way in Pain, parents feel impelled to shield their children from her (“the mothers saw my heels and they said I wasn’t welcome”).
But elsewhere, Clark seems conflicted about the whole business of playing with identity, flipping between songs projecting a character and songs that are clearly personal: not just the title track, but The Laughing Man’s eulogy for a late friend. On The Melting of the Sun, she lists a succession of soul-baring singer-songwriters and some of their most personal work – Tori Amos’s harrowing depiction of her rape, Me and a Gun; Nina Simone’s livid Mississippi Goddam; Joni Mitchell’s self-baiting exploration of musical “authenticity” Furry Sings the Blues – and finds herself wanting in their company: “Who am I trying to be? … I never cried / To tell the truth, I lied”.
Perhaps her confusion is linked to the fact that constructing a persona is what her father seems to have done: “You swore you had paid your dues then put a payday in your uniform,” she sings on the title track. Or perhaps the album’s fixation with the early 70s, a high-water mark era for pop stars gleefully reinventing themselves, cast a troubling shadow over the whole enterprise. David Bowie, Alice Cooper and Elton John are justly revered artists, but they’re also cautionary tales about the dangers of playing with identity: one of the reasons they ended up in deep trouble was an inability to square their real lives with the images they projected. Whatever her reasons, the sound of Clark’s confusion, and its wilfully warped musical backing, is significantly more gripping than the gossip” – The Guardian
Key Cut: The Melting of the Sun
Jazmine Sullivan - Heaux Tales
Release Date: 8th January
Label: RCA
Producers: Key Wane/DZL/Cardiak/Kevin ‘Wu10’ Wooten/Jairus ‘JMO’ Mozee/Dev Hynes/Dave ‘Pop’ Watson/Dilemma/Joe Logic/Gee/Uforo ‘Bongo ByTheWay’ Ebong
Standout Tracks: Pick Up Your Feelings/On It (ft Ari Lennox)/Girl Like Me (ft. H.E.R.)
Review:
“For a moment there it looked as though we’d lost Jazmine Sullivan. The R&B icon has always had a love-hate relationship with the broader industry, rejecting the impositions placed upon her as a Black American woman in an often hostile environment.
Ending a five year hiatus in 2020, Jazmine’s return sparked bedlam from fans, with her name swiftly trending across North America. New album ‘Heaux Tales’ is her first since 2015’s ‘Reality Show’ and it arrives with palpable expectation, a thirst fuelled both by the peerless highs of her own catalogue and that mysterious disappearance from the public eye.
A divinely contoured, wonderfully precise experience, ‘Heaux Tales’ is an exquisite listen. Taken as individual elements, the songwriting her ranks among her finest to date, but there’s an over-arching sense of purpose which allows ‘Heaux Tales’ to search for its place as one of the finest modern R&B albums to emerge in the past decade.
Utilising spoken word segments to align each chapter within the album’s framework, Jazmine aims to explore “today’s women standing in their power...” Linking together sexual openness with a frank take on materialism, ‘Heaux Tales’ bristles with independence, from the opening words of ‘Bodies’ through to those closing notes.
The peaks have an Alpine quality. ‘Pick Up Your Feelings’ is sensational, while Ari Lennox features on the wonderfully infectious ‘On It’. A record that stakes a claim to its own pasture, ‘Heaux Tales’ dares to be different, with Jazmine’s perfectionist streak balanced against occasionally raw, intimate use of sonics.
As such, Anderson .Paak’s raucous appearance on ‘Pricetags’ is offset by moments of genuine tenderness, such as closing track – and previous single - ‘Girl Like Me’, a soothing meditation on femininity that allows Jazmine’s vocal styles to pirouette against H.E.R.
The spoken word segments act as much more than mere skits, with those prose elements illuminating key thematic aspects of her work. A record whose internal structure feels both delicate and immediately engaging, ‘Heaux Tales’ thrives through its proclamation of the unexpected, with Jazmine leading her assembled cast on to fresh ground.
Ending such a lengthy wait for new material was never going to be easy, but Jazmine Sullivan makes her Everest-like task look deceptively simple. A woman speaking her truth in poetic, soulful fashion, ‘Heaux Tales’ could be her defining chapter” – CLASH
Key Cut: Lost One
Julien Baker – Little Oblivions
Release Date: 26th February
Label: Matador
Producer: Julien Baker
Standout Tracks: Faith Healer/Crying Wolf/Favor
Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/julien-baker/little-oblivions-lrs-2021
Review:
“The album’s opening track, “Hardline,” kicks off with an abrasive organ sound that brings to mind a B-horror flick. Despite this campy flourish, though, the song’s timbre quickly turns darker: “Start asking for forgiveness in advance/For all the future things I will destroy,” Baker sings. Around the two-minute mark, she all but eschews her folk roots, embracing an alt-anthemic instrumental mix à la PJ Harvey, Sharon Van Etten, or Angel Olsen, her voice more tonally defined—and defiant—than on her previous releases.
“Relative Fiction” is one of the album’s melodic high points, reminiscent of “Souvenir” from Boygenius, Baker’s 2018 collaborative EP with Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus. The track’s ethereally repetitive piano part is used to disorienting effect, as if to induce motion sickness, with Baker offering a grimly predictable and inauspicious mantra: “I don’t need your help/I need you to leave me alone.” On “Faith Healer,” she paints a vivid portrait of someone languishing with somatic symptom disorder (“Snake oil dealer/I’ll believe you if you make me feel something”), her voice paradoxically charged and disembodied.
A shuffling drum part on “Bloodshot” contrasts compellingly with Baker’s languorous vocal. In a striking couplet that references an unnamed trauma (“Five days out from the initial event/It takes two kinds of pills to unclench my fists”), the singer describes the effects of a “trigger,” the “initial event” in all likelihood reactivating an earlier and more psychologically foundational trauma. She then defaults to syndromic fatalism: “There’s no one around who can save me from myself,” echoing the fixation of the tragic romantic.
The textural “Favor” most resembles Baker’s prior work, the singer’s tormented voice compellingly contrasted with the song’s spry instrumentation—in this case, static-y percussion and jangly guitars. Bridgers and Dacus contribute backing vocals on the hook-y chorus, their distinct performances adding sonic range to Little Oblivions. As the album progresses, Baker fleshes out her Opheliac persona, mostly striking an authentic tone, though occasionally flirting with cliché, as with the masochism expressed in “Song in E”: “I wish you’d come over not to stay, just to tell me/That I was your biggest mistake.”
On the album-closing “Ziptie,” Baker achieves a potent confluence of vocal, melodic, verbal, and instrumental virtuosity, ending the track with the proclamation: “Good God, when’re you gonna call it off/Climb down off the cross and change your mind?” With these lines, she offers a transcendent prayer to a higher power or messianic figure, an impatient brush-off to a loyal lover, or gives herself permission to end her own perennial suffering. In the latter interpretation, these oblique lyrics can be regarded as tantamount to an oblique suicide note.
With Little Oblivions, Baker upgrades her erstwhile folk style to accommodate a harder rock approach, though lyrically she’s as vulnerable as ever. Like A.A. Williams, Snail Mail, and Soccer Mommy, she successfully translates her confessional tone and subject matter into melodically and atmospherically engaging songs, resulting in an album that represents a significant step for one of contemporary music’s most eloquent artists.” – SLANT
Key Cut: Hardline
Arlo Parks – Collapsed in Sunbeams
Release Date: 29th January
Label: Transgressive
Producer: Gianluca Buccellati
Standout Tracks: Hurt/Hope/Black Dog
Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/arlo-parks/collapsed-in-sunbeams-e1ca16e9-971f-44e6-8a52-2b237161cd41
Review:
“With each song shrouded in a mist of melancholia and coming-of-age confessions, Arlo’s breathy vocals soften, and make palatable, the often harsh and uncomfortable realities of life. The use of metaphors and images of nature, nourishment, filmography and friendship offer vignettes of reality that is so near-perfect, you can almost taste it.
From feel-good ’90s R&B which is used to disguise the reality of what it’s like being with someone who is in denial about how they feel about you (‘Too Good’) to the hazy neo-soul in ‘Bluish’ and a multitude lo-fi indie bangers that dive into the friction and dark side of companionship, and with a healthy dose of spoken word littered throughout, ‘Collapsed in Sunbeams’ is testament to Arlo’s mission statement of not pigeonholing herself so early on in her career.
As a debut, it is a sublime body of work from the kind of artist who is meticulous in all aspects of her craft. To put it simply — in the artist’s own words — she is “making rainbows out of something painful”, and we’re just so lucky enough that everything she touches turns to gold” – DORK
Key Cut: Caroline
Lana Del Rey – Chemtrails over the Country Club
Release Date: 19th March
Labels: Interscope/Polydor
Producers: Jack Antonoff/Lana Del Rey/Rick Nowels
Standout Tracks: Chemtrails over the Country Club/Tulsa Jesus Freak/Yosemite
Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/lana-del-rey/chemtrails-over-the-country-club/lp-plus
Review:
“The LA-based musician’s last album, 2019’s ‘Norman Fucking Rockwell!’, saw her hit a career-high with a record that instantly cemented its place as an all-time great. Yet with ‘Chemtrails…’ Del Rey follows it with ease, riding that record’s creative high but looking further back into her past to tie her whole story together in one place.
On first listen – and especially after the more organic sounds of ‘NFR!’ – ‘Tulsa Jesus Freak’ might come as a shock. Del Rey’s voice is fed through Auto-Tune and vocal processors, aping the production of the mumble rappers she declared her love for on her last album cycle. Incorporating elements of hip-hop into her timeless pop is nothing new for Lana – she’s been doing it since her ‘Born To Die’ era – but it’s exciting to hear her invention and refusal to be restricted.
There are plenty of Easter eggs littered throughout the record, connecting it to past releases. On the title track, she sings, “You’re in the wind, I’m in the water”, harking back to ‘Brooklyn Baby’’s “I think we’re the wind and sea”. She repeats ‘Mariners Apartment Complex’’s assertion that she “ain’t no candle in the wind” on the quiet fingerpicked folk of ‘Yosemite’ and ‘Tulsa Jesus Freak’, while ‘Wild At Heart’ brings back the character of Joe, who previously appeared on ‘NFR!’’s ‘How To Disappear’ and her spoken-word poem ‘Never To Heaven’.
As well as paying tribute to herself, on ‘Chemtrails…’ Del Rey carves out space for her heroes and current favourites. ‘Breaking Up Slowly’ finds her swapping verses with country singer Nikki Lane. “I don’t wanna live with a life of regret / I don’t wanna end up like Tammy Wynette,” Lane sings at one point, before Del Rey references the vintage star’s third husband George Jones: “George got arrested out on the lawn / We might be breaking up after the song.”
The album ends with a poignant cover of Joni Mitchell’s ‘For Free’, which features Arizona rising singer-songwriter Zella Day and Weyes Blood’s Natalie Mering. On the penultimate track ‘Dance Til We Die’, Lana sings, “I’m covering Joni and I’m dancing with Joan / Stevie is calling on the telephone.” It’s a reminder that, more than just being influenced by the likes of Joan Baez and Stevie Nicks, she’s now on a par with them. Lana Del Rey is at the peak of her game – just don’t expect her to come down anytime soon” – NME
Key Cut: Let Me Love You Like a Woman
Lucy Dacus – Home Video
Release Date: 25th June
Label: Matador
Producers: Lucy Dacus/Colin Pastore/Jacob Blizard/Jake Finch
Standout Tracks: VBS/Cartwheel/Triple Dog Dare
Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/lucy-dacus/home-video/lp-plus
Review:
“Home Video is an autobiographical return to the streets of her hometown in Richmond, Virginia. The centerpiece, “VBS,” is a deceptively bouncy ode to the sorts of teen summer camps where archery and canoeing jostle for scheduling space with bible study. It’s unclear if God was ever truly real for Dacus; she’s after tangible rewards more than spiritual ones. “A preacher in a t-shirt told me I could be a leader,” she sings, in the manner of someone who’s folded up a compliment and tucked it away for years of safekeeping. She’s enamored of a fellow camper in need of salvation, who blasts Slayer and recites bad poetry while she struggles not to laugh. When her friend tells her, “You showed me the light,” she’s not sure if she believes them: “All it did, in the end, was make the dark feel darker than before.”
In these songs, we hear Dacus, who would come out as bisexual in early adulthood, struggling to square her queerness with her faith. She’s worried that she doesn’t even need to say the words—that something in her demeanor, her bearing, the lines of her palms, will give her away. After a judgmental parent bars her from spending time with a crush, she stares at her own hands, wondering, “How did they betray me? What did I do?/I never touched you how I wanted to.” Her desire is pulsing, alive, and limited entirely to fantasy. She imagines traveling to the future to disrupt a friend’s wedding: “If you get married, I’d object/Throw my shoe at the altar and lose your respect.” Even her relationships with boys are defined by what doesn’t happen more than what does. A schoolyard flirtation culminates with a meeting on a park bench, the two afraid to even look at one another.
In the climactic “Thumbs,” Dacus imagines murdering a friend’s deadbeat father. The words are delivered not as a shocking aside but a calm insistence, repeated in each chorus, with virtually no instrumentation behind her voice. She makes this threat even as it’s clear that she is terrified. After meeting him, she and her friend “walk a mile in the wrong direction,” worried that he’s watching, that he might follow them home. These two young people are butterflies trapped under glass, and in this song, Dacus enacts a survivor’s fantasy of retribution: pulling the pins out of their abdomens, wielding the metal against the man who trapped them.
Though Dacus returns to places of isolation and despondency, it’s comforting to know she’s not making her journey alone. Her boygenius bandmates Phoebe Bridgers and Julien Baker make welcome contributions, providing gentle backing vocals in two songs. If the long list of collaborators credited on Home Video is any indication, Dacus belongs to a strong, supportive community of artists who’ve sharpened her arrows and strengthened her storytelling. The record’s only real misstep is Dacus’ decision to alter her voice with Auto-Tune on “Partner in Crime.” She says that she intended to channel the older man’s deceit with a sonic deception of her own, but in the otherwise cozy, acoustic world of this album, the effect is simply jarring.
Still, Home Video is a bold statement, a powerful post-adolescent text in its own right. Dacus looks to her past without judgment of her younger self, exploring years of rigidity and repression with empathy and care. Though she’s unsparing in her depiction of disturbing memories, she’s never caught in cycles of sorrow and regret. She gives her listeners permission to shake loose the beliefs they held as children and dive headfirst into the clean, cool waters of the future. Write your own moral code, she suggests; write your own worldly music” – Pitchfork
Key Cut: Hot & Heavy
girl in red – if i could make you go quiet
Release Date: 30th April
Label: AWAL
Producers: girl in red/Matias Tellez/Finneas
Standout Tracks: Body and Mind/midnight love/Rue
Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/girl-in-red/if-i-could-make-it-go-quiet
Review:
“girl in red - aka Norwegian artist Marie Ulven - has established herself impressively fast as a songwriter whose bedroom-based efforts are deeply confessional and awash with romance. On her debut LP she ramps up the production to create a neon, adolescent sprawl while remaining true to her heartfelt, lo-fi roots.
Akin to Billie Eilish’s ‘When We All Fall Asleep…’ and Lorde’s ‘Melodrama’ before, ‘if i could make it go quiet’ has all the qualities of a blockbuster pop record - incessant hooks, A-list producer credits - but hone in on each track and you’ll find intimate vignettes that are fully-formed in themselves. ‘Serotonin’ is a dazzling starting point that contradicts its subject matter - Marie addresses having OCD for the first time, as well as more general life anxieties - via an upbeat FINNEAS-produced arrangement. When she sings “I get intrusive thoughts like burning my hair off / Like hurting somebody I love” in its heady breakdown, she turns those violent sentiments into something positive, validating and dismissing them at the same time.
This sense of inclusive affirmation runs through ‘if i could make it go quiet’ as she captures the unruly gorgeousness and opposing confusion and grief of adolescence. “I cannot live like this no more,” she blares at the huge climax of ‘Body And Mind’, manifesting the intensity of those emotions through brilliant volume, while on the gentler, piano-led ‘Apartment 402’ she reflects the bleakness of depression in more sparse strokes.
Ultimately, though, girl in red’s charm lies in her overarching wide-eyed excitability, and it’s her optimism that brings this record to life. On ‘hornylovesickmess’ there’s not a shred of ego present when she sings about seeing her own face on a billboard in Times Square; it feels like a moment shared with a mate, in awe of their accomplishment - not her first, and certainly not her last, if this soaring debut is anything to go by” – DIY
Key Cut: Serotonin
CHAI – WINK
Release Date: 21st May
Labels: Sub Pop/Otemayon
Producers: Dar Ishikawa/Mndsgn/YMCK
Standout Tracks: ACTION/It’s Vitamin C/Miracle
Review:
“Their music was a lively mix of pop, dance, and disco-punk. A kinetic mesh of punchy beats, fuzzy funk, and sparkling hooks, with chirpy, anime character-like vocals spreading messages of female empowerment, self-love and self-confidence. The Japanese four-piece have adopted a self-dubbed mentality of NEO-kawaii, in protest against the suffocating idea of kawaii – or “cute” – that women in their culture feel constant pressure to conform to. Positivity and joy sits at the heart of what they do, and with their 2019 album PUNK that took the form of an exuberant and dynamic sound, full of a hyperactive, uncontainable kind of energy.
That’s still present on WINK. “PING PONG!” is a glitchy 8-bit dance number featuring Japanese chiptune group YMCK, and “ACTION” is an uplifting, body-moving shuffle, inspired by last year’s Black Lives Matter protests. But it’s opener “Donuts Mind If I Do” – a breezy, loungey number – that sets the tone for what’s to come on WINK. There’s an intriguing change in pace and style to CHAI’s usually go-go-go sound this time around, the group’s positivity wrapped up in dreamier, R&B-tinged grooves. “KARAAGE” is a breathy slow jam, comparing love to the caring process of making Japanese fried chicken, and “Maybe Chocolate Chips” is a laid-back serenade likening YUUKI’s moles to the titular sweet treats, while “IN PINK” is a down-tempo electro-funk ode to the colour of love.
Read interviews with CHAI and you’ll see they continually insist that no singular sound or genre defines the group; their genre, their type of music, is whatever they’re currently into, whatever makes them feel good. Like the rest of the world, CHAI spent the past year in lockdown, which not only forced them to live life at a slower pace – for once – but to also seek out comfort during a turbulent and uncertain time. WINK is a direct result of that, an album full of calming energy, with vibes to soothe the soul and the mind, and put a smile on your face” – The Line of Best Fit
Key Cut: Donuts Mind If I Do
Olivia Rodrigo - SOUR
Release Date: 21st May
Label: Geffen
Producer: Dan Nigro
Standout Tracks: brutal/deja vu/enough for you
Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/olivia-rodrigo/sour/lp-plus
Review:
“Olivia Rodrigo's debut album opens with swooping strings, indicating the sort of melodrama that made "Drivers License," her debut single, a TikTok staple and automatic chart-topper. Would Sour, the Disney star's entrée into pop music, lean into what worked so well over the winter? The answer comes about 14 seconds later, when the strings break and Rodrigo declares, "I want it to be, like, messy." Whew: Thrashy guitars careen into the mix, announcing the teen-angst tirade "Brutal" — and Rodrigo's desire to defy any pop expectations that have been placed upon her by fans, friends, executives, or exes.
Born in 2003, Rodrigo began her come-up through the Disney ranks in the mid-2010s, appearing in and singing the theme song for the vlogcom Bizaardvark until 2019. That year, she was also cast in High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, which turns the unstoppable 2000s franchise into its own high school musical. As Nini Salazar-Roberts, who goes on to play Vanessa Hudgens' Gabriella Montez in the show's show, Rodrigo co-wrote and performed "All I Want" in the series, a deeply felt, if slightly gloppy, showcase for her lithe voice and detailed lyric writing.
Then came "Drivers License," which Rodrigo teased snippets of on Instagram last summer and released in January. While its popularity was given a boost by the gossip-page chatter around it — was it about HSMTMTS co-star Joshua Bassett? Who was "that blonde girl who always made [Rodrigo] doubt"? — its power-ballad grandeur and ingenious production, starting from the way its beat blossomed from a car's open-door chime, propelled its appeal across demographic lines. "Drivers License" sat atop the American charts during the country's shortest, coldest days, and its raging against cosmic unfairness felt righteous.
Sour could have been "Drivers License: The Maxi-Single," a cynical grab for curious streamers full of also-ran tracks from HSMTMTS' cutting-room floor. Instead, the album, which Rodrigo worked on with producer and co-writer Dan Nigro, announces the California native as a major player in the ever-shifting spheres of teen pop and adult pop. She's a singer who zeroes in on her lyrics' emotional core and a writer who's pushing past the noise of the outside world and listening intently to her truth — even if those realities seem ugly, or, as she sings on the serpentine "Jealousy, Jealousy," make her wonder, "I think too much."
Like any "bad times" playlist worth its track listing, Sour embraces sonic variety; pop-punk, synthpop, dreampop, and good old power ballads all come into the mix, while Rodrigo's limber soprano is its guiding light. "Good 4 U" is punchy and snide, with Rodrigo gasping out its syllable-laden, salt-heavy verses over tense drums that explode into a manic, sarcastic chorus. "Déjà Vu" is a gauzy fantasia with a time-blackened heart, all pillowy synths propping up Rodrigo's venom-filled diatribe toward an ex who's moved on. There are ballads, too — "Traitor," which precedes "Drivers License," feels like a thematic prelude to that hit, its lyrics full of the post-grief anger and bargaining that precede aimless-driving depression. But any heaviness is leavened by Rodrigo's self-awareness and grace: "Hope Ur Ok," which closes the album, is a shimmering blessing to down-on-their-luck people Rodrigo has known, complete with a chorus that sounds like a benediction.
Rodrigo was three years old when Taylor Swift's self-titled album came out, and 10 when Lorde released Pure Heroine; those two artists' DNA is definitely part of Sour's genetic makeup, from the interpolation of Swift's reputation track "New Year's Day" on the regret-wracked "1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back" to the spectral harmonies on the stripped-down "Favorite Crime" that recall the choirs accompanying Lorde on "Royals." But Sour doesn't try to be "the next" anyone; instead, Rodrigo distills her life and her listening habits into powerful, hooky pop that hints at an even brighter future. A-” – Entertainment Weekly
Key Cut: drivers license
The Weather Station – Ignorance
Release Date: 5th February
Labels: Fat Possum/Next Door
Producers: Tamara Lindeman/Marcus Paquin
Standout Tracks: Tried to Tell You/Separated/Trust
Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/the-weather-station/ignorance/lp-plus-3
Review:
“In the time since the Weather Station’s last album, Lindeman devoted herself to studying the climate crisis, attending town halls and leading panel discussions with fellow musicians and activists in Toronto. In a 2019 interview, she explained the similarities between these conversations and her work as a songwriter: The same way she noticed how her subtle, uncluttered music about intimate subjects could have a therapeutic effect on listeners, she sought to address what’s known as “climate grief” with a sense of compassion, discussing the severity of the facts without ignoring the emotional weight.
Throughout Ignorance, she suggests the first step is rejecting cynicism. It is a goal she shares with Weyes Blood’s Natalie Mering, whose 2019 album Titanic Rising found beauty in similarly heavy subject matter. But where Mering’s approach involved zooming out to address our problems on a cosmic scale, Lindeman takes the opposite perspective, burrowing into quiet scenes and passing feelings until they seem to hold universal significance. Plenty of us, for example, may have thoughts like the ones in “Atlantic” (“I should get all this dying off of my mind/I should know better than to read the headlines”). But generational exhaustion is not the point. Instead, Lindeman paints an idyllic portrait, full of wonder, with a glass of wine in her hand: “My god,” go the opening lines. “I thought, ‘What a sunset.’”
As if leading a guided meditation, Lindeman continually turns our focus to the natural world—but her findings aren’t always so picturesque. She has referred to “Parking Lot” as a “love song for a bird,” and, for the most part, that’s what it is. Standing outside a venue before a show, and on the verge of what sounds like a minor breakdown, she notices a small bird flying around the parking lot. And so she stops to admire it. “Is it alright if I don’t want to sing tonight?” she asks, as if sensing an omen. There’s a metaphor here: the helplessness, the aimlessness, the clash between subject and setting, the quiet singing against the droning traffic. Lindeman has spent her career pondering these connections, pausing in the moments when other people are restlessly pushing forward. Her writing throughout Ignorance can feel like the collected epiphanies from a lifetime of observing.
And sometimes, language fails her. In the last 90 seconds of the song, she gets hung up on the opening words of a sentence: “It kills me when I....” The band anticipates a climax: A string section summons a “Cloudbusting” sense of drama; a disco beat dances from hi-hat to snare with increasing intensity. I swear I hear a choir buried in the mix. Meanwhile, Lindeman takes another stab at the thought: “You know it just kills me when I…” Eventually, she finishes the sentence. Her mind returns to the bird, the band settles down, and life, as we know it, goes on: its constant hum of worry, a sea of cars, another show to play. But for that moment, it was all up in the air” – Pitchfork
Key Cut: Robber