The R&B-leaning Drinks or Coffee describes that flirtatious pre-hookup phase where both parties are trying to play it cool – “drinks or coffee, just call me yeah?” And Number One Girl, ostensibly another “pick me” plea to the no-good ex, is actually speaking to a less relatable, but nonetheless heartbreaking experience. Written after a sleepless night in which Rosé stayed up until dawn reading mean comments written about her on social media, it’s a devastating account of feeling worthless and unloved, even with over 80 million followers on Instagram.

Overseen by some of pop’s biggest producers, everything on Rosie is tasteful albeit overly uniform, unlike the livelier Blackpink productions, and Rosé‘s soprano, while powerful and alluring, occasionally sounds like a simulacrum of other pop stars including Taylor Swift. More impressive are Rosé’s sharp, affecting lyrics, covering topics she could never broach in Blackpink, where there is huge pressure to always present as the “perfect girl”. Ironically, daring to be imperfect is sure to deliver Rosé more of the reassurance she, like most of us, clearly craves. Annabel Ross

Losing her religion: This indie star has gone solo and gone pop

Lauren Mayberry, Vicious Creature

Going pop: it’s a phrase that is so loaded, and never in a good way. It’s usually levelled at an artist when they’re perceived to be going commercial and blanding out, catering to the masses to gain mainstream attention. But what if you go pop in order to assert your true self?

That appears to be the case with Lauren Mayberry. As the lead singer of Scottish synth-pop trio Chvrches, she was always the focal point, a siren-like voice fronting clattering beats and keyboards that soared and chattered.

A half-dozen years ago, they seemed to be everywhere. I remember attending three different music festivals around 2018-2019, and Chvrches were on the bill at each one, building a bridge between brooding emo-angst (they did eventually collaborate with Robert Smith of the Cure in 2021) and hands-in-the-air celebration.

But after 13 years and four albums, Mayberry started thinking about her place in the band, and more importantly, her place in the world – specifically, her place as a woman in the world.

The official line is that the group is on hiatus. But if Mayberry’s debut solo album Vicious Creature is anything to go by – with lines such as “I bit my tongue to be one of the boys” in new song Sorry, Etc. – it’s doubtful she’ll be going back to Chvrches.

One listen to Change Shapes tells you pretty much everything you need to know. The opening lyric is this: “It’s exhausting trying to hide all the time, performative hypocrisy took over my mind.” You don’t even have to read between the lines to see where that’s coming from.

The shunting beat, handclaps and hit-the-dance floor dynamics are reminiscent of ’80s Madonna, circa Material World and Into the Groove. And, like Madonna, Mayberry is expressing her regrets and desires but couching those sentiments in a way to make people dance. Indeed, it’s almost impossible not to move when Change Shapes is playing. It’s also no coincidence that Mayberry has been covering Like a Prayer in concert.

Punch Drunk, with its burbling bass, twisty tune and vocal swoops and dives, is a knowing ode to infatuation that meshes Lene Lovich’s loopy new wave and Olivia Rodrigo’s trick of admitting one’s bad decisions and owning them, a la the internal monologue of Bad Idea, Right?.“It makes me sick, and I hope it never ends,” Mayberry sings, knowing this thing she’s involved in won’t end well, but wrapping her arms around it anyway.

She’s in a similar frame of mind in Shame, a song about being hopelessly attracted to men she knows are wrong for her. In a recent interview, she talked about how the song was inspired by the idea that a whole generation of girls such as herself grew up with screen characters like those played by Ethan Hawke in Reality Bites – the broody, floppy-haired, self-obsessed man-child. “Even when I watch the film now, I’m still horny, it’s still hot,” she said. “But he’s incredibly rude and dismissive… I’m hardwired to find that attractive.”

Loading

Things slow down and get more reflective on tracks Oh Mother and Are You Awake? – both are piano-based ballads, the former vaguely echoing the child-parent dynamic of Harry Chapin’s Cat’s in the Cradle, but from the female perspective; the latter a rumination on missing her home, family and friends in Glasgow (she’s now based in Los Angeles) but at the same time knowing she had to move on.

There are a couple of missteps, too. A Work of Fiction is too fussy and flighty for its own good, while Sunday Best, with its Fatboy Slim-style blocky piano, paint-by-numbers string samples and Madchester baggy backbeat could be mistaken for a Spice Girls’ solo single from the early 2000s.

Fortunately, these two are at the back end of a debut solo album that has already made its mark and made its point, with Mayberry planting her flag in the dance floor and baring her soul in the process. Barry Divola

To read more from Spectrum, visit our page here.