How could Rebecca Lucy Taylor, aka Self Esteem, possibly follow up on the sheer barnstorming odyssey of pop honesty of 2021’s Prioritise Pleasure?
The answer is with abundant ease upon the release of her third album, A Complicated Woman, on Polydor Records that summons the themes and styles that pushed the Self Esteem cream to the top – a blend of spoken word mantras, and alt-dance pop.
Her calling card: a stream of consciousness offering a kaleidoscope of good, bad and quite ugly feminine experiences in all its forms. Where the processing may have begun on her first two albums, the toxic masculinity, the misogyny, the anxiety and societal pressures, A Complicated Woman feels like a step further into enlightenment, empowerment and liberation. Album opener I Do And I Don’t Care sets the tone incredibly well with her trademark irreverence, but is also reassuring us (or more specifically, woman kind) that everything is better when you’re together.
Focus is Power is confrontational but comforting, Mother is filled with a withering frustration laced with humour. Lies (featuring Nadine Shah) is euphoric but angry. Middle fingers are raised to all the fuck boys on Cheers to Me. And special nod to 69, probably one not to play in front of your parents.
While this may feel at times like business as usual for Self Esteem (see the beautifully arranged and hopefully ecstatic If Not Now, It’s Soon), there are new directions in her sound and writing like The Curse or In Plain Sight (the latter with previous Big Man collaborator Moonchild Sanelly).
The anthemic qualities of her songs, pulsating backbeats with her jubilant backing choir and orchestral arrangements, cement her place as a boundary-pushing pop icon, simply giving it all, saying her truth. The epic closer The Deep Blue Okay with the line “It’s still hard out here/ But, fuck, I’ll just keep going” makes us feel there is plenty more to come and plenty more to say.
