Album Review: A Complicated Woman by Self Esteem

Rebecca Lucy Taylor's third album as Self Esteem sharpens what's always been at the core of her musical identity: the tension between frank vulnerability and pop maximalism. 'I'm whinging in a new way', she deadpans on I Do And I Don't Care - the album's manifesto in miniature. Its thesis is less a declaration than a reluctant truth: 'Fuck me, is this all there is? / This really is all there is, and that's the thing you've got to get comfy with'.

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In her pop solo project, Rebecca Lucy Taylor has created a character whose double-edged aphorisms manage to convey painfully relatable experiences in new, insightful ways, like the fourth-wall confessions of Fleabag. (Even a cis man like me feels "seen" by this music, given that it's so often about women's experiences vis-à-vis toxic men. ) Her third album, A Complicated Woman, marks a four-year break since her last full studio project Prioritise Pleasure, and the shift in emphasis in those titles - from bold imperative to slightly subdued cliché--marks a shift in tone, too.

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Rebecca Taylor, aka Self Esteem, has two aspects to her persona, as presented via her second album, Prioritise Pleasure: The indefatigable activist and the unapologetic hedonist. Regarding the former, Taylor adopts the feminist mantle with ease. She extolls the strength, resilience, and resourcefulness of women while advocating for their rights, festively and militantly.

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On third record 'A Complicated Woman', Rebecca Lucy Taylor - aka Self Esteem - scraps much of the industrial alt-pop that coloured acclaimed second album 'Prioritise Pleasure', instead honing in on the soulful theatre at the heart of her manifesto. The feel good pop's still around, of course - see her standout middle-finger to fuckboys 'Cheers To Me' - but most present here is her core; a portrait of the modern woman both in motion and standing still. Backed by a jubilant choir, Taylor's rapturous explorations of womanhood are torn through the mundanity of growing older, the depressive nature of Groundhog Day-normality and the catharsis of splitting even further as age makes concrete her contradictions.

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Four years ago, Self Esteem shook the world of pop to its core with her groundbreaking second album 'Prioritise Pleasure'. Bringing together maximalist pop sounds with devastating honesty, genuinely good life advice, and sharp humour, the record brought her outstanding critical acclaim and a Mercury nomination. From Glastonbury to Taskmaster , Rebecca Lucy Taylor became a household name.

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One of the best things about Rebecca Lucy 'Self Esteem' Taylor's songwriting is the element of surprise. While the nakedly confessional spoken word piece I Do This All The Time made her reputation in 2021, this third album's most striking piece is club banger 69, a breathy eulogy to favoured sexual positions, with the title style dismissed as "the one thing I hate / 'Cos I can't concentrate". The whole record is a sonic trip, a conceptual journey through existentialism to shaky self-acceptance, from the hymnal synth opener I Do & I Don't Care through to the house-infused lyrical savagery of Mother, the bright, sweary pop of Cheers To Me and the punky statement of intent Lies, to the orchestral, tentatively peace-making closer The Deep Blue OK.

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