The Pop Corporation

When Rebecca Lucy Taylor burst out, upwards and in every direction, with the sensation that was ‘Prioritise Pleasure’, it was a refreshing tone of voice which mixed camp winks and nudges in the ribs, with some loud proclamations of womanhood that felt modern, authentic and, perhaps most importantly, witty.

While a lot of music aimed at the sisterhood can feel a little dry, Self Esteem stomped all over the place, injecting joy amongst the diatribes, and did it while wearing a brilliant take on Madonna’s conical bra, only hers, replicating the domes of a Sheffield landmark.

Since then, she’s dazzled in the theatre world with her turn in ‘Cabaret’, and even appeared on ‘Celebrity Bake-Off’ and ‘Taskmaster’, which is certain type of prime-time stuff indeed.

She’s back with a new album called ‘A Complicated Woman’, which from its Handmaid’s Tale LP sleeve, is intending to bring more of the same righteousness and fun of what made her so popular in the first place.

However, there’s a nagging feeling that the moment she captured last time around, may have gone. Like a lot of Obama-era art which has aged terribly – John Legend ballads, ‘Hamilton’, et al – there’s a sense that the Guardian-reading women of the HashtagMeToo era doesn’t resonate as well in 2025.

From the occasionally fun vignettes and one-liners, there’s a gentle sense of being scalded and men, somewhat unhelpfully now being reduced to hapless bozos, which is a trope that feels rather musty these days. And sure, we can giggle when she sings “the one thing I hate, coz I just can’t concentrate – no, I just can’t abide – I’ve never the time to 69,” but it sounds less like women bemoaning selfish lovers and, well, prioritising pleasure, and rather more like someone idly positioning women’s shagging habits as something of a political talking point at a dinner party, hoo-hooing over the desserts.

Maybe that’s something that comes with an increased budget and the self-doubts that inevitably creep in when you become headliner sized? You hear it frequently with groups and artists that go overground, and the music itself starts imagining itself being played in larger rooms and fields. The need for ‘an anthem’ can work, but it can also show the signs of decline. Katy Perry’s fall-off didn’t begin with bad shark dancers and ‘Swish Swish’ – it started with ‘Roar’, when all we wanted was more bubblegum bops.

And sure, feelgood stadium singalongs are fun, but they can end up feeling circumstantial, like all those ’90s indie bands who had to right a long, midtempo one to end their sets with.

Listening to ‘Focus Is Power’, it sounds stirring enough, but there’s a gnawing feeling that it’s destined for advertisements or montages in the future, with it’s polite take on gospel music. ‘Cheers To Me’, ‘Mother’ and the aforementioned ’69’ sure as hell sound like club music, but there’s a sweat and stink missing in them, in which you worry that Taylor hasn’t been afforded the opportunity to let loose in an actual club for longer than she’d perhaps like.

This is all to say that, you’d be mad to not root for Taylor – she’s a hugely likeable artist who wears her heart on her sleeve, and clearly has a lot going for her. With that in mind, you can find yourself willing this album to be better – you want to like it more, but too often, are weighed down by it. She states: “We’re not chasing happiness any more, girls – we’re chasing nothing; the great big still – the deep blue Okay.”

‘The deep blue Okay’ is about right, on reflection, more’s the pity. Do we want to sing with these anthems, or are we being cajoled into it, as the choirs come back again? Maybe this is the point she’s making and we’re being far too literal about it? Maybe this album just isn’t for us, which is also fine.

There’ll be good and great reviews for this record, no doubt, but for us, our expectations lay elsewhere and while the Self Esteem project should not be written off by any means, and there are moments on this LP which stir up the magic of pop, there was just too much that left us yearning for something else, and to hear something more resonant.