ALBUM REVIEW: Self Esteem - A Complicated Woman
Never go full Lizzo.
We live in a day and age where our female pop stars are freer than ever to be themselves. You’ve got your Taylor Swifts and your Olivia Rodrigos, who explore their problems through supersized, highly personal anthems that any gender can relate to. Your Dua Lipas are less effective but still find success with charismatic vocals and catchy production. Then, of course, you’ve got your Lizzos and your Meghan Trainors, whose platitudes about female empowerment ring as empty as a Coke bottle rattling around a highway. So why did Rebecca Taylor, aka Self Esteem, choose the Katy Perry path? A Complicated Woman is anything but complicated; it’s patronizingly simple in both its lyrics and its sound, and even worse: it’s just freaking boring.
Whereas Prioritise Pleasure was a very personal record, A Complicated Woman tries to be all things for all people. Taylor presents herself as the voice for women, oftentimes using nothing more than an all-female choir to back her. But for as many women as you hear across the album, their combined force provides an empty punch. There’s so little substance to lyrics like “If I'm so empowered, why am I such a coward?/If I'm so strong, why am I broken?” from opener “I Do And I Don’t Care”, especially when the slog of spoken word throughout the track is aimless. This attempt broad appeal robs Taylor of the personality that made songs like “Moody” fun; she’s infantilized the messaging of a Rosie the Riveter poster. Men suck. Believe in yourself. While both can be true, it’s not remotely interesting to present it in such a basic manner. You can’t just sing about being mother (or not wanting to be) on the clunky “Mother” with a straight face when Kesha is out here doing the same thing with personality to spare.
If the attempts at female empowerment are going to be dull, can’t the music at least sound fun? Lizzo used to be that way; even Meghan Trainor had her time in the sun. The sound of A Complicated Woman is as empty as its messaging, which is especially disappointing with how fun parts of Prioritise Pleasure are. For every solid melody like “Focus Is Power”, there’s an incomplete dud like “What Now” that should’ve been left on the cutting room floor. Too many songs build towards a predictable climax; from the second the first strings pop in on “The Curse”, you know exactly how the song is gonna play out. These saccharine gospel tracks are contrasted with undercooked EDM beats that Charli XCX would’ve found uninteresting a decade ago. “Cheers To Me” and “If Not Now, It’s Soon” at least have a little life to them, but they pale in comparison to what her contemporaries with their souls still intact are doing.
“What the fuck you want from me?” scream Taylor and Moonchild Sanelly on the middling “In Plain Sight”; I wanted a better version of Prioritise Pleasure, which this album just isn’t. Its hollow messaging makes the gospel-driven tracks fall flat, and the EDM tracks truly dreadful. You can’t be this thin and expect a song titled “69” to be greeted with anything but eye rolls. Honestly, its best moment might be its finale “The Deep Blue Okay”, which is a great description for how the best moments of the album sound. It’s sort of generic but a catchy melody and some actual chutzpah from Taylor make it passable. If that’s the best your album has to offer, you’ve got a long way to go before your messaging becomes worth hearing.
Verdict: 5.1/10
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