When Charli XCX—whose tossed-off quotes have lately had as much impact on the zeitgeist as most world leaders’—openly mused that “the dancefloor is dead” last week, many leaped to argue the exact opposite. You can safely ignore most pop stars when they make sweeping, declarative statements about the state of culture at large. We are not yet living through Gen Z’s “Disco Sucks” moment. But Charli’s quote has lingered in my head ever since listening to Jessie Ware’s dead-on-arrival sixth record, Superbloom. I hate to admit that this time, she might actually have a point.
Ware broke out in 2012 with a debut that established her as a torchbearer for sophisti-pop and the Big British Ballad. She sensed the winds change with the brutal response to her 2018 Coachella performance, an event so technically marred and painfully out-of-step with her crowd that it prompted her mother to counsel: “Darling. Quit.” Ware’s subsequent record, What’s Your Pleasure?, administered a much-needed shock to her sound, quickening the pace and lighting a much-needed spark that recast pet themes of love and devotion with newer, sweatier nightclub urgency.
No score yet, be the first to add.
One quality about Ware’s pivot to the dancefloor never quite added up: She came across more like the poised host than a partygoer. The singer’s first three records were tasteful and unbelievably mature, combining a West End knack for drama with R&B vocal pyrotechnics. Never lacking in commitment, Ware threw herself into the nightlife in a whirlwind of pearls, caftans, and hairpieces, soundtracking other people’s abandon while remaining exquisitely composed herself. Like an episode of Bridgerton overseen by the Countess Luann, Ware as mistress of ceremonies could be queenly and overstated, but she was never messy or ridiculous enough to see the fantasy through.
With its third installment, her loose disco trilogy has finally run its course. Superbloom is another helping of polyester in an age of microplastics, weighed down by chintz and notably shorter on dazzle and wit. Ware’s fantasia of instant connection and rapturously good sex is backed by music that is punishingly exact, conjuring a Studio 54 that’s as VIP as an airport lounge. The record marks the point where the singer’s disco purism tips over into outright literalism. That it was released on this year’s second Coachella weekend seems painfully fitting.
Inspired in part by Gillian Anderson’s compendium of women’s erotic fantasies, Want, as well as Nancy Friday’s My Secret Garden, Superbloom is, in theory, a manifestation of Ware’s deepest desires. But despite PG-rated lyrics and wallpaper-flowery production, the record seems almost pathologically hesitant to say what those might be. The songwriting is so chaste and disembodied that an Old Hollywood censor would have no problem greenlighting it. Arms and the sensation of being held by them is the record’s prevailing erotic act, appearing on the title track, “Automatic,” “Love You For,” and “No Consequences.” Ditto “touch,” evoked in such non-descript ways that you’d be forgiven for thinking it was part of a Covid protocol. Apart from the raunchy bathhouse escapade of “Sauna,” Ware does not express a thought that could be construed as unseemly, kinky, or perverse, which is to say in any way relatable to a wider audience.
