Having a vision for an album, for a moment of your career as an artist, or even just for a single performance is something so many musicians strive for. I know many could argue that Rebecca Lucy Taylor, better known as Self Esteem achieved this on her bold 2019 debut Compliments Please, or the 2021 critically adored follow up Prioritise Please; plenty of the other writers on this very website would be among them. But spending some time with A Complicated Woman has me feeling those albums were only a warm up for the most visionary moment of Self Esteem’s career so far.
This isn’t the album I expected. That feels like the entire point. This isn’t the album some fans will have ‘wanted’. That also feels like the entire point. It’s definitely not the pivot to a more mainstream pop sound that you imagine industry people wanted from Rebecca. And again, that feels like the entire point. The most obvious praise I can level on A Complicated Woman is that it has purpose. It’s such a distinctively unique listen and never fails to say something. It’s also impossible to know whether this will resonate with fans and those still on the fence. It’s complicated.
And Self Esteem is a complex musician on this album. If any of the pre album singles defined the sound of this album it would definitely be ‘Focus Is Power’, music that feels like a collaborative singalong with her friends, her fans and the community. There’s a communal power to so much of this music, most obviously in the choral wall of vocalists that appear in so many songs on this album. To me this has become Self Esteem’s signature style as an artist and it’s a joy to hear it on opener ‘I Do and I Don’t Care’ that feels almost like a bridge from the Prioritise Pleasure album.
The spoken style we heard on previous songs remains but the most obvious sonic change is in her voice. ‘Logic, Bitch!’ was the moment I really heard the difference, there’s a clarity of confidence in her tone now, almost going for it slightly less but with more purpose. It’s not difficult to imagine the Self Esteem of Compliments Please could have sung these records, but the delicate emotion and subtlety wouldn’t be here. Perhaps that’s what performing months in the best leading role on the West End does to you; as a performer I’ve never heard Rebecca the person as clearly as on these songs.
It’s so clear to hear moments that will become defining moments in a Self Esteem show ‘I wouldn’t do it if it didn’t fucking work’ on standout ‘The Curse’ is emotive but powerful. ‘Cheers To Me’ is the most straightforwardly ‘pop’ song of any album so far, the throbbing bass of an early 2010’s alt-pop smash, but the power and emotion is there with every ‘The worst idea was you’. This is an album that focuses on the complexities of being a woman, navigating an industry and a world dominated by masculinity, but most of all that no one can truly navigate that alone.
‘If Not Now, It’s Soon’, potentially my favourite moment on the whole album, almost blends a drum and bass production and surrounds it with luscious string arrangements and the most powerful sentiment on the record. A spoken word moment from Julie Hesmondhalgh completes the powerful poignancy of the song; ‘Something will happen because it has to’. Monchild Sanelly delivers another devastating call on ‘In Plain Sight’; ‘what the fuck you want from me, I’m saving you you’re killing me’. It really feels like A Complicated Woman is an album for something, to do something and every song showcases this in a different way.
It’s a complicated album though and on first listen the jumps between the delicate choral moments like ‘What Now’ to the bass of ‘Mother’, or the electrifying Nadine Shah collaboration ‘Lies’, to the whiplash of euro house throb of ’69’. I can actually see quite a few of the songs here being quite divisive, but not a single minute of this album feels wasted. A purposeful journey through the mind of one of music’s most dynamic and fascinating stars.
By soaring closer ‘The Deep Blue Okay’ the feeling of trying to understand Rebecca Lucy Taylor fades away to reveal the true meaning of the album, a communal look around us, to each other and within ourselves. A Complicated Woman might end up being the defining ‘Self Esteem’ album. A summation of the last eight years, an album that’s meant to be experienced together. Side by side with Rebecca Lucy Taylor to lift each up through the complicated life all of us are just trying to cope with.
Words by Sam Atkins
Picky Bastards 
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