Lola young Burst on stage with the viral anti-anthemen ‘”Messy,“A powerful single that felt like reading through someone’s unfiltered Notes app at 3 o’clock” I’m not lean, and I’m pulling a Britney every other week, “She Hyler.” But cut me a little slack, who do you want me to be? “It was a question, but also a warning to call back your expectations: Young is far from interested in being your typical pop star.
The 24-year-old came from South East London and introduced himself first-scraped but honeymade and impossible to ignore. With “messy” young people asked their listeners about a second listen, just to find out who the hell could sound like to. Now, with her third studio album “I’m Only Fucking Myself”, she doubles not only on the chaos, but rather weapons. The singer songwriter continues to share his life’s story with width and robust singing that knows and sounds beyond her year.
With the title with a wink and a warning, “I’m Only Fucking Myslit” was attached to the shadow of a breakout hit, a cocaine rehabilitation and the emotional bomb shells that come with sudden fame. Young is windy self -conscious about its own methods for self -sabotage. The album cover says everything: an inflature doll that carries her face, a metaphor for commodification, stranger and the general absurdity to be young and peeked.
The lyrics dive deep into Young’s inner world and reveal her on her most self -destructive, but artistically on her sharpest. She meets like a punch and hugs like a bruise, often in the same verse. On “Can we ignore it? :(” She rationalizes with her avoidance tendencies: “I play with fire that I feel when it burns / if I am honest, I take something as long as it hurts.”
There is context for the devastation. After graduating from Brit School 2018, Young performed on local gigs and open microphones before getting attention to the industry’s heavyweight Nick Shymansky (Amy Winehouse’s former manager) and Nick Hugget (Exec who first signed Adele). With Shymansky still by its side, Young’s path was undoubtedly affected by legends, but in “I’m just fucking myself”, she has put in the work to make it unequivocally hers.
Where her former work leaned to acoustic balladry, this slice of Young sees safely in an instrumentally dense alt-pop terrain. The production is richer, more secure and more secure, with collaborations including Manuka and Solomonophonic (SZA, Dominic Fike, Remi Wolf) that adds psychedelic-funk and rock booms.
The second-to-load song, “Who Fucking Cares?,” Captures The Album’s Balance of self-pity and comedy, packaging it into a sticky chorus: “All I know is that I’m like to be, and somay in the Might get there / in the meantime Unlikely, He’s Probly Having Great Sex / With That Girl in Knew was an idiot. ” At the same time, “Post Sex Clarity” feels like the most (slightly) radio-ready offer, polished and pop-forward without grinding the edges. But it is on “fuck everyone” where she is scratching her teeth: “I have smoked on your father and given him head / he has blasted my phone, but I blow him instead.”
It is brash, unobstructed and impossible not to laugh (or wince) when you are involved in her pure brave. But Young never lets the shock value darken her musical substance. During the reckless confessions, there is a soul that is impossible to ignore.
