When an indie act goes pop, alarm bells used to ring.
Not that one form of music takes any higher precedence over the other, but honing your sound to become flagrantly more commercial was seen as a sign of weakness, or of ‘selling out’. If you’re good enough as a band, you should be able to reshape pop around you (The Cure, Oasis, Arctic Monkeys) rather than reaching for it.
That’s a slightly outdated principle now, as genres are rapidly becoming a thing of the past. To be more pop means, broadly, to add some sheen and sparkle to your offerings as well as the more old-fashioned concepts of being catchy or resonant.
So when Girl Ray announced their new Year Zero was Ariana Grande’s explosion into pop culture, some eyebrows may have been raised. Their debut album was pleasant and understated, all jangly gems and ramshackle instrumentation, and certainly worthy of further exploration. Yet once the squealing synths and calypso beat of the title-track (and opener) kick in, it’s clear on Girl the North Londoners are boldly changing course.
One pre-requisite of pop music is that it should cover matters of the heart (and sometimes body), and Girl Ray aren’t found wanting here. Just Down The Hall starts in a jaunty way but transforms into something much seedier, and with hushed Barry While-style vocals in the background over string-driven funk it practically oozes sex.
Elsewhere Takes Time, with a guest appearance from British rapper Pswuave (‘go ahead and call me mama/and you can be my baby’), owes a large debt to contemporary R&B, albeit more pondering with a beat so deep you feel your ears might be popping.
Carnal matters are most prominent on Friend Like That (‘he dipped me like a casual fondue’). The key weapon in the band’s arsenal is Poppy Hankin’s Nico-esque vocals, which are used to great effect across much of the album. Her breathy vocals provide sincerity to the glitter funk of Show Me More, while on Because they contrast well with the fullness and the slightly reverberating polka of the track. Her English accent over broadly summer time, mid-west pop production shouldn’t work but does. Either knowingly or unknowingly the track lifts from the Beatles track of the same name (‘because the world is round’) and is a similarly cleansing experience.
It’s not frantic in the way that modern pop can be. The tempo, while often very danceable, is unhurried in a way that rewards multiple listens. Let It Go percolates at its own pace, and the dusty organ on the ode to friendship of Keep It Tight keeps things at base level.
Yet as the album progresses the band’s roots come to the fore: the flute, so prominent on their debut, returns in the latter stages along with strings which maraud across the closer Like The Stars, which starts as a straight forward piano ballad but then builds elegantly with sumptuous guitars. Elsewhere it’s front and centre on Go To The Top, which would sit comfortably on their debut.
Girl Ray have brought in Ash Workman as producer, whose credits include Christine And The Queens and Metronomy, and the approach largely works in terms of broadening their sound rather than over-hauling it. It’s fortunate that this is the case, as to abandon their whimsy would have been a great loss.
Girl, while not as unique as their debut, is a testament to measured experimentation.