Latest news with #AComplicatedWoman
Telegraph
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Self Esteem, A Complicated Woman, review: deserves to be heard live
'Be very careful what you wish for.' Rebecca Taylor, who performs as Self Esteem, begins her third album almost in medias res, with spoken word that picks up the thread of 2021's I Do This All The Time. That lightning-in-a-bottle single, and its parent album Prioritise Pleasure, won over a generation of women and sent Taylor skyward: Mercury and Brit nominations, casting in the West End as Sally Bowles in Cabaret and another West End run of five sold-out theatrical performances of her new album, one of which saw Madonna in the audience. No wonder that A Complicated Woman's opening track is more stage monologue than pop song, given her recent experience treading the boards. 'I'm not complaining, I'm whinging in a new way,' she tells us, examining the trappings of fame. Fame, for 38-year-old Taylor – who found recognition in her mid thirties, which is unusual for this youth-obsessed industry – has been complicated. 'Call me anything you want,' Taylor sings. 'Time's not on my side.' She finished A Complicated Woman at the height of Brat summer last year, and felt self-conscious about making such an earnest album at the opposite end of her thirties to 32-year-old Charli XCX. Tracks such as Mother, Lies, and 69 — a roll call of favourite sex positions — lean into that clubbier sound, but it's clear Taylor doesn't need to pretend to be a messy party girl to win accolades. On Self Esteem albums, the message, though a vital one — exposing the contradictions of being a woman in your thirties — tends to outshine the music. Take away the empowering lyrics of lead song Focus Is Power, and what's left might sound like a corny charity single. Taylor aimed for 'sing-along stadium tropes' on this new album, mainly achieved via a sizeable chorus who lend their lungs to many of its tracks, often to rousing effect: the chorus bolster guest Moonchild Sanelly's cry of 'what the f— you want from me?' on In Plain Sight, and add sway to alcohol dependency ode The Curse: 'I wouldn't do it if it didn't f—ing work / but it really works / and that's the curse.' Occasionally, the voices cloy. 'If you know, you know,' they croon on What Now: the kind of platitude that only Lana Del Rey can get away with. Despite the choral boost, Taylor's music only really unleashes its full power on stage — it deserves to be experienced live. Just listen to The Deep Blue Okay, the final track on A Complicated Woman: its exultant, urgent piano chords that build and build — like those of LCD Soundsystem's All My Friends — beg to be danced to with all your friends, in a room full of people who feel the same way. Kate French-Morris Best New Songs By Poppie Platt Addison Rae, Headphones On With her debut album set for release on June 6, pop's hottest new star and former TikTok mega-influencer Addison Rae goes for full-blown glamour in her new video… by strolling around Iceland. I don't get it either. But Headphones On is another banger: a deliciously nostalgic hybrid of Janet Jackson and prime-era Britney. Future Utopia (featuring Lava La Rue), The Pleasure Trap Producer to the stars Future Utopia – who has worked with Adele and grime veterans Stormzy and Dave – teams up with rising British star Lava La Rue on this infectiously trippy, synth-heavy anthem. Lorde, What Was That She wrote pop masterpieces Royals and Ribs when she was just 16, released one of the 21st century's finest albums with 2017's Melodrama, and last year broke the internet with her feature with Charli XCX on Girl, So Confusing. Lorde is, usually, one step ahead of the curve; a singularly interesting pop star. Which all makes her hotly anticipated new single What Was That even more disappointing. There's cringey discussion about mainlining MDMA and idolising cigarettes that make her sound like a Christian youth camper trying to be rebellious. It'll probably be the biggest hit of the summer regardless. Pearl Charles, Just What It Is A gorgeously wistful Americana track about forgiving your past self and accepting the dark elements of your past from one of LA's rising stars. PinkPantheress, Stateside Another garage-influenced slice of Y2K euphoria from PinkPantheress, her whispery, deliberately cutesy vocals offering welcome respite from the frantic bass. Charli XCX collaborator and indie darling The Dare co-produced. Sam Fender, Tyrants Not content with having scored another Number 1 with his third album, People Watching, North Shields' answer to Springsteen finally drops this searing, guitar-led fan-favourite that was previously only available on vinyl and is now sure to storm up the charts.
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Self Esteem live in London: Rollercoaster ride of a theatre show kicks off new era
Is this a sermon, a theatre epic, group therapy? Whatever it is, A Complicated Woman at the Duke Of York's Theatre feels defining in the already accolade laden career of Self Esteem. Is there anything Rebecca Lucy Taylor can't do? Hearing these new songs feels like a rite of passage on Easter Sunday. The room is not only part of a movement, but witnessing something inspired, destined for glowing reviews and affirmation. So much so, even Madonna has been spotted in attendance. Is she now a 'Steemer' too? It's easy to gush over something so emotive in a hotly immersive theatre setting. But the post hype that's coming from ticket holders and critics alike is well founded. In 75 minutes, you're taken on a rousing rollercoaster, a ride that flips your stomach, soul and emotional equilibrium. You don't know which way you're going to go, but be sure you're going to feel it. The show opens in theatrical spectacle, a follow on from Rebecca's Sally Bowles at The Kit Kat Club, meeting The Handmade's Tale square in the face. A Complicated Woman, or what we've seen of her so far, is brought to life; set free. The choreography from here on in is genius, rave-pop belter 'Mother' is fearsome, funny and executed in quite terrifying convulsive movements, rippling throughout the meticulous ensemble. This is what the crowd came for, a ride only Self Esteem can stop – strap yourselves in. The show is sprinkled with some hits from her second album Prioritise Pleasure. There's subtle twists though, Easter eggs for fans. So much thought and detail have been poured into this, where do you find the time Rebecca? But what's apparent here is that she's welcomed help now, even she recognises this on stage, stating the process of collaboration as 'healing'. Kudos to theatre designer Tom Scutt and the folks at Empire Street Productions. The new songs don't just hold gravitas within the crowd but recent single 'Focus Is Power' propels everyone into rapturous ovation and embrace. Even the back rows stand in collective appreciation, singing back to the stage 'I deserve to be here'. It's all quite euphoric, even cathartic. What are we witnessing, is anyone else doing this right now? 'In Plain Sight', a song with Moonchild Sanelly is jaw dropping, spine tingling stuff. Moonchild on the big screen, tears rolling down her face with the ensemble staring back in worship. Light cascades through the stage, across the crowd and goosebumps are triggered. Rebecca breaks character, or so we're led to believe as she sits down to have a chat with the audience. Can we take a breath? You must be kidding! She seamlessly merges this casual convo into the spoken word prowess of 'I Do This All The Time' and the audience are in the palm of her hand, chanting this fierce feminist gospel back to her. It's time now for the men to be quiet and listen: 'Be wary of the favours men do for you'. After juxtaposing fragility with power, comes a crescendo in the jubilant form of 'The Deep Blue Okay', another new track and one befitting an encore. It's easy to see why this new work found a place on the theatre stage. After all, it's a story, a journey, one of turmoil and captivity that leads to the ecstasy of freedom. No doubt the latest album will work on the road and in festival fields this summer too. Combined into a theatre show, it's nothing short of a masterpiece and one that's certainly going to leave its mark. But Rebecca, one question. How do you eat a banana on stage and then sing a beautiful ballad? They're so claggy.
The Guardian
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Self Esteem: A Complicated Woman review
Last week, London's Duke of York's theatre played host to an elaborate four-night live staging of Self Esteem's third album. Devised by Self Esteem herself – Rebecca Lucy Taylor – along with Tony award-winning theatrical director and designer Tom Scutt, it was rapturously received by critics, and seemed to speak of an entirely understandable confidence on Taylor's part. Since 2017, she has completely reinvented herself, from one half of middle-ranking indie duo Slow Club into an on-her-own-terms pop star. Her second album as Self Esteem, 2021's Prioritise Pleasure, was a critical and commercial success, shifting her into the realm of breakfast TV interviews and appearances on The Graham Norton Show and Celebrity Bake-Off. She also has a burgeoning career as an actor, having played Sally Bowles in a West End production of Cabaret opposite Scissor Sisters' Jake Shears. Her success has meant that, on Prioritise Pleasure's follow-up, she was finally afforded a recording budget sufficient to do what she always wanted: grand ambitions involving choirs and orchestras. But, by her own account, the making of A Complicated Woman was fraught. Taylor was racked with self-doubt and plagued by twin worries: that if it took too long to make, her career would lose momentum, and that at 38, she was too old to be a pop star anyway. She apparently considered quitting music entirely. Some of those concerns have evidently seeped into the songs. The music on A Complicated Woman reaches for feelgood stadium singalongs, evokes sweaty dancefloors and aims itself at the dead centre of 21st-century mainstream pop. There are moments where the lyrics match the sound: 69 combines distorted rave-era-evoking beats and an explicit checklist of what Taylor does and doesn't enjoy in bed (winningly, given that it variously mentions pegging, scissoring and the reverse cowgirl position, it was released as a single); Mother's grimy house pulse is topped with a blistering dismissal of a self-absorbed ex that contains the impressively sick burn: 'Are you interested in growing? There is other literature outside of The Catcher in the Rye.' But for the most part, the songs thrash about and contradict themselves as if Taylor is, right in front of your ears, working out exactly how she feels about ageing, drinking or her career. This approach sometimes feels brave and fascinating – The Curse's examination of a complex relationship with alcohol is affectingly realistic and relatable, declining to resort to either wellness bromides or let's-party nihilism. But sometimes it feels confusingly opaque. The tellingly titled I Do and I Don't Care revisits the spoken-word approach of her breakthrough single I Do This All the Time, but in place of that song's chord-striking list of sexist remarks there's a brain-dump stream of consciousness. It's tough to work out what she's driving at, whether the song's string-laden conclusion ('We're not chasing happiness any more, girls / We're chasing nothing / The great big still / The deep blue OK') is positive or incredibly bleak. To which Taylor might reasonably respond: that's the point, stupid. This is anthemic-sounding music about ambiguity, perhaps striving to bond people together without providing pat answers in deeply uncertain times. She has mentioned Elbow's reliably roof-raising One Day Like This as a model for part of the album's sound and you can hear its influence in the massed vocals and swelling orchestration that liberally pepper A Complicated Woman. But you're occasionally struck by the sense that it's trying a little too hard to rouse its audience into a mass singalong. There are moments when the choir arrives and you think 'them again?' – closer The Deep Blue Okay marries them to a fidgety piano line and ends up sounding like a cross between LCD Soundsystem's All My Friends and something off The Greatest Showman soundtrack, a deeply peculiar cocktail. The likes of Mother, or the noisy Nadine Shah-featuring Lies, are more powerful for the choir's absence. A Complicated Woman is a bold experiment that you couldn't call a failure – there are good things there, that underline how vastly improved the world of pop is for having Self Esteem in it – but doesn't always come off with the efficacy Taylor might have hoped. As the reviews of the Duke of York's show suggest, it might well work better live, aided by the fact that Taylor is a fantastic performer – you can easily imagine Cheers to Me's defiant coda ('but mostly cheers to me') being bellowed back at the stage by a vast crowd, taking on a new potency in the process. Its author has recently talked about pursuing her acting career further: perhaps A Complicated Woman belongs on the stage too. A Complicated Woman by Self Esteem is released by Polydor on 25 April Lady Wray – Be a Witness Lady Wray continues to pilot her own peculiar path through soul music: Be a Witness is lush, summery and synth-heavy, but intriguingly lo-fi, as if it were recorded off the radio decades ago.
BBC News
20-04-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Race Across The World is back, and Self Esteem's new album: What's coming up this week
This week, Race Across the World returns to our screens, with five teams setting off from the Great Wall of that's not all the week has in Esteem's new album is out, the next series of The Mangione Trial drops on BBC Sounds, and gaming fans have Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 to look forward on for what's coming up this week... Race Across the World is back Another frenetic Race Across the World starts on anyone who hasn't seen the Bafta-winning BBC One show, it offers a bird's eye (or perhaps coach window) view of five duos racing around the globe for a £20,000 phones, flights or bank cards, this year's pairs must travel more than 14,000km - starting at the Great Wall of China and finishing at Kanniyakumari, the southernmost tip of India.I've had a sneak preview of the new series, and can tell you the scenery is absolutely breathtaking. But language barriers quickly pose a is Race Across the World so popular?So who's competing this year? The teams include sisters Elizabeth and Letitia, former married couple Yin and Gaz, and teenage couple Fin and the line up, we have brothers Brian and Melvyn, and mother and son Caroline and Across the World is as much about its contestants as the race and travelling. I'm mostly excited for the inevitable moving moments, as we see the teams pushed to their absolute limits. Self Esteem is A Complicated Woman By Mark Savage, music correspondent "This album is going to get terrible reviews," Self Esteem predicted when I caught up with her last "Because people hate women doing well," she laughed. "I'm very ready for a male journalist to say it doesn't make sense, because it's a lot."That's kind of the point, though. Out on Friday, A Complicated Woman is an attempt to capture womanhood in all its complexities and contradictions – and that means moving through musical genres, modes and attitudes with almost whiplash-inducing Self Esteem, aka Rebecca Lucy Taylor, is too clever to mess it up. Her trademark wit and sincerity are firmly in place, as she talks candidly about social anxiety, crises of confidence, infantilised men, her least favourite sexual positions and being beaten down for speaking include The Curse, a stadium-sized ballad about using alcohol as an emotional crutch; and closing track The Deep Blue Okay, where she eventually finds a modicum of inner peace. Along the way, there are guest appearances from Nadine Shah, Moonchild Sanelly and even Coronation Street's Julie launched the album with a flashy West End residency last week – where fans were delighted to discover that A Complicated Woman was an uncomplicated delight. More on the Mangione trial Luigi Mangione's case went viral after he was charged with killing healthcare chief executive Brian Thompson in New York City in has pleaded not guilty to state charges, and has yet to enter a plea for separate federal on social media have celebrated the 26-year-old, and shared anger at America's private health what are the facts, and what are the conspiracies?The Mangione Trial, on BBC Sounds, aims to unpick this. The latest episode drops on Wednesday, and looks at how the US healthcare system hears from a mother who says she spent $40,000 (£30,000) on her daughter's treatment while also battling for her insurance to cover episodes will dive into what conspiracy theories are, and why people become so obsessed with them. Defying destiny in Clair Obscur and Until Dawn By Tom Richardson, Newsbeat reporter Dark fantasy Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, out Thursday for PlayStation 5, PC, and Xbox Game Pass, quite literally caught people's eyes when it was first revealed at last year's Summer Game video games go, it's a stunner, with gorgeous art direction heavily inspired by France's 19th century Belle Époque control a crew of characters on a quest to destroy the Paintress – a being who emerges once a year and scrawls a number onto a monolith. If someone's age matches the digits, they die (hence the 33 in the title).Somehow, the 30-person team at French developer Sandfall Interactive has also managed to attract some top-tier acting talent to the role-playing game (RPG) project, including Daredevil's Charlie Cox, Gollum actor Andy Serkis, Final Fantasy XVI's Ben Starr and Baldur's Gate 3's Jennifer the thing that's arguably generated most excitement is the game's focus on old-school turn-based combat. It was a staple of classic 1990s and early 2000s RPG series such as Final Fantasy that's fallen out of fashion in the blockbuster space of late. If the studio sticks the landing with their debut title, expect to hear about Expedition 33 when Game of the Year season rolls that doesn't take your fancy, video game adaptation Until Dawn is out in cinemas on Friday. Passionate fans of the 2015 "interactive horror movie" were concerned when the first trailer revealed the film's makers had swapped the game's trademark choose-your-own-adventure device for a Happy Death Day-style time with Lights Out and Annabelle: Creation director David F Sandberg and prolific horror writer Gary Dauberman on board, and a buzzy cast including Love, Victor star Michael Cimino and up-and-comer Ella Rubin, Until Dawn's fate isn't necessarily sealed yet. Other highlights this week Good Bad Billionaire is out on BBC Sounds on Monday, telling the story of Selena GomezMatriarch, a memoir by Tina Knowles, is out on Tuesday - I'll have an interview with her out that day tooAndor, season 2, drops on Disney+ on Tuesday (Wednesday in the UK)You, the fifth season of Netflix's thriller series, is out on ThursdayMurder on Line One, by Jeremy Vine, is published on ThursdayFlintoff, a documentary about Freddie Flintoff, is out on Disney+ on FridayThe Accountant 2 is released in cinemas on FridayJeff Goldblum's new album Still Blooming is out on Friday
The Guardian
19-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Self Esteem review
Hard-edged digital club music throbs from the theatre stage – a place mostly in darkness, its shadows hiding a drummer and a multi-instrumentalist. Standing in a row, glaring at the theatre audience, are Self Esteem and 10 dancers. They are not dancing. It's a tense, delicious contradiction. The company stand stock-still for what feels like ages, clad in bonnets, collars and black gowns – half convent, half Gilead. When they do move, it's just their heads at first, glaring accusatively at one spotlit audience member. Gradually, these halting and jerky gestures become spasms, which become seizures, until finally the tension is released into something akin to dancing. The propulsive music, meanwhile, comes from one of the best tracks from Self Esteem's brand new album, A Complicated Woman, released next week. Mother finds Rebecca Lucy Taylor telling a lover how she is not there to parent them. 'Work on your own shit,' she sneers. Taylor's forthrightness is made up of equal parts fed-up, straight-talking northerner and arts-leaning OnlyFans dominatrix. 'Are you interested in growing?' she demands witheringly. 'There is other literature outside of The Catcher in the Rye.' While it's very much a banger from the present, there are hints here of Underworld and of Peaches – the grand dame of 00s underground sex-positive club music, whose work was full of hard emotional reckonings. This five-night theatrical presentation of Self Esteem's new album is very much an ensemble piece in which group singing and moving as a mass are as important as the singular pop star at the front. Taylor cites David Byrne's American Utopia tour as a source, but there's a lot of Mitski in here too. The performers move like a murmuration of starlings around Taylor. Lies – a new song about the falsehoods we tell others to make them comfortable and how we believe them ourselves because it's easier – plays out as a seated circle, with the lights revealing the foreboding Club Gilead space around the performers to be a well-used community hall; piled-up benches, visible backstage clutter. The climax of the first act, however, finds the performers cavorting in a tableau of simulated carnality; Hieronymus Bosch via High School Musical. Later, everyone will be in football kits, doing lunges to 69, a song about sexual positions. And we're back! Taylor's last album, 2021's unmissable Prioritise Pleasure, perfectly bottled a set of feelings about her life and times that pointed up the ferocious contradictions of contemporary womanhood, queer and straight. It resonated hard, catapulting Self Esteem from cult act to flavour of the moment as the post-pandemic era prompted many into similar recalibrations. Stop people-pleasing, FFS, was the album's overarching message to all comers; please yourself. When the album's cycle reached its end, Taylor took on other work, most notably a role in Cabaret. She credits that experience with teaching her a degree of self-care; another way of making art that could be less gruelling than the indie rock method. Taylor spent many years in a band, Slow Club, before being reborn as DIY pop maximalist; she ran herself into the ground touring Prioritise Pleasure, anyway. Hence this show, which will – Self Esteem has hinted elsewhere – be followed by a more conventional tour. It starts off sublime; an unexpected highlight (if that's the right word) is a projected image of the South African polymath Moonchild Sanelly, a guest on the album, weeping silently circa In Plain Sight. 'What the fuck you want from me?' Sanelly cries, in playback, and the choir swell to join her. Gradually, the show becomes less like an artistic statement about the threat to women's autonomy and the complexities of getting what you want and still having to work on your own shit regardless, and more like a gig. Last album hits such as Wizardry and I Do This All the Time punctuate the run of new songs: a reasonable tactic that gets people up and out of their seats. It really is great to hear them again, in the company of others, but it still feels like a slight dilution of Taylor's stark vision tonight. Self Esteem's fans love her for many reasons. One is Taylor's sense of humour – or more specifically, her compulsion to puncture pomposity with a wink. Many will feel that this evening's triumphant return hits a crescendo around the perky dance pop of Cheers to Me, with a message in hot pink projected on a screen: 'Please do the dance on TikTok I want to buy Janet and Andy a caravan,' it reads. 'Let's toast each and every fucker that made me this way,' the song invites. Soon there's a simulated dating app projected on the screen starring inflatable tube men and real ones on stage; Taylor and her performers bend them over to make a wind machine for her hair. It's a laugh – clever and apt. But far more affecting is Taylor's heartfelt speech afterwards about keeping going, keeping trying and not struggling alone. 'We have to do it together, I think,' she says.
