![]() ![]() It’s hard to say exactly when, but at some point between 2015’s vibrant Big Grrrl Small World and 2019’s chart-demolishing, crossover-triumphing Cuz I Love You, the Detroit-born singer/rapper/flutist became a vocal, endearingly OTT body-positive, sex-positive icon in possession of an outsized persona perfect for pop-star fame. Maybe it doesn’t matter how it sounds so long as you’ve got a personality as big and self-empowered as Lizzo’s. If Grrrls is really meant to be authentic, trouser-hem-vibrating trap, then it’s doing a poor job of it: it’s cartoonish and ill-conceived. Break Up Twice sounds tinny and feeble, too brazenly made in the shadow of Winehouse’s pop masterpiece to be impactful, only reinforcing just how singularly Back to Black’s contents remain. The thick smear of glossy lacquer over 2 Be Loved (Am I Ready)’s blaring synth noise and 80s affectations acts like a wall or a muffler there’s nothing wrong with the tautness or catchiness of its hooks, but the drum machines, blank and hollow, make for weak support. And yet, for all its stylistic manoeuvres, there’s something inexpressibly deadening and false about Special, something watered-down or desiccated about it. Grrrls bounces and jives with the predictable hiss and plonk of trap. Break Up Twice heads in the direction of smoky, melancholic pop-soul embellished by a horn section in the mould of Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black. 2 Be Loved (Am I Ready) offers bright, supercharged 80s-inspired pop with distorted synth stabs. Special attempts to cover a range of bases. What does is how bland the results are with this many hands involved. Bloated list of collaborators aside, this wouldn’t raise an eyebrow.
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