It was all a direct result of that last album: Prioritise Pleasure was a phenomenon, scoring Self Esteem Mercury Prize and Brit nominations, as well as being named the best album of 2021 by the Guardian and the Sunday Times. A record packed with both disarmingly witty one-liners and heartfelt wisdom, it featured the central gem ‘I Do This All the Time’, a staggering spoken word piece which worked as a worthy contemporary successor to Baz Luhrmann’s classic ‘Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)’.
It's perhaps no surprise that Taylor directly references ‘I Do This All the Time’ in the first words of her new album on a characteristically vulnerable track that eventually revs up to another spine-tingling orchestral finale. “If I’m so empowered, why am I such a coward?” the choir demands, realising that even once you’ve overcome your demons, living from day to day still takes courage.
It’s a slice of nuance that sadly goes missing for much of A Complicated Woman’s runtime, not least on lead single ‘Focus Is Powerful’, a remarkably unremarkable piece of X Factor pop that lays it on thick with a gospel choir belting “every time I fall I crawl back like an animal” over a soulless drum machine. It’s the sort of superficial empowerment-bait that Sweden might send to Eurovision in one of their off years. ‘If Not Now It’s Soon’ similarly seems to vie for mainstream Radio 1 appeal, the motivational speaker patter a pale imitation of the pithy observational poetry that made Self Esteem’s last album so great.
In fact, the most eyebrow-raising moments on A Complicated Woman come from its guests. South African all-rounder Moonchild Sanelly gives a powerful call for freedom on ‘In Plain Sight’ (“the free imprison me with their expectations and opinions”), whilst fiercely creative Scouser Nadine Shah is a natural match for Taylor on ‘Lies’.
Taylor’s own attempts a being ‘complicated’ are less successful – ‘69’ is a wilfully provocative song about sex positions that admirably reclaims sexuality for a woman whom society deems a little too old for such matters, but any decent hook is forgotten amidst all the fun lines about doggy style and missionary. (And, once you’ve listened to Kim Petras, ‘69’ feels tame both lyrically and sonically.) Similarly raucous rave number ‘Mother’ went down a storm when Self Esteem teased it at her last show in Newcastle back in March 2023, but on the record the bass line goes nowhere and the lyrics devolve into plain old ex-bashing.
The highlight is ‘Cheers To Me’, a sugary piece of Carly Rae Jepsen-esque dance pop that is already accruing fan favourite status at Self Esteem’s theatrical pre-release shows. Lesser artists might happily set a tune this lively to words about falling in love, but instead Self Esteem cloaks the song in withering irony: “Let’s toast each and every fucker that made me this way / Cheers to you but mostly cheers to me”. Cue a musical confetti cannon of a final chorus that mixes euphoria and self-loathing in a way only Self Esteem can.
A Complicated Woman concludes with ‘The Deep Blue OK’, an attempt at a grand uplifting finish that feels overstuffed with words and light on actual meaning. Perhaps, as Taylor’s recent interview with the BBC would suggest, A Complicated Woman is a product of a brutal streaming-dominated music industry where major labels give musicians minimal time to craft their art or risk losing their moment in the sun. Either way, there’s a lingering sense that A Complicated Woman never really arrives at the profound depths it keeps hinting at. “You’ll always work it out,” Taylor concludes triumphantly, but after this album’s 12 tracks have come and gone we still feel no closer to knowing what “it” is, if anything.