PinkPantheress Album Review: ‘Fancy That’

Fancy That might feel like more of the same from PinkPantheress, but her formula remains remarkably effective.

PHOYO CREDIT: @elliothensford, Mixmag

Mainstream pop music doesn’t have an ‘outsider’ figure in the way it used to. Lorde? Came and went. Alessia Cara? Came and went even faster. As the pop landscape seems preoccupied with gratuitous samples and ridiculous glamour, we no longer have that figure in the industry who represents the every-person. Or do we?

Pinkpantheress opens her new mixtape by introducing herself: “My name is Pink and I’m really glad to meet you” she sings on Illegal, although, in truth, she needn’t have bothered. After all, she has five UK Top 40 hits, including the international smash Boy’s A Liar Pt. 2, to her name. But despite this success, she slots into that outsider role in modern pop remarkably well, and Fancy That only affirms that belief.

What’s always impressed me about PinkPantheress since her debut is her understated charisma. There’s an effortless cool in how she never needs to overplay to come across as the most desirable person in the room. There’s a magnetic sensuality to the watery chords on Tonight and Stars, the shimmering elegance of the opening synth on Illegal, and the breezy, easy-going nature of this whole mixtape that prove the perfect match for her. Also, for however prominent the samples are prominent in a lot of these songs, they never overpower them. In fact, when she starts singing along with the Just Jack sample on Stars and goes back and forth with Nardo Wick on Noises, it’s clear she’s just having fun with them, and it lends this album a straightforward infectiousness that’s remarkably refreshing.

The songwriting has also taken a welcome step up, despite how remarkably ordinary it all feels. The breezy way she writes about chilling, smoking weed, and negotiating through relationships might suggest she is totally unshakable, but there’s vulnerability at the core of these songs, whether it be questioning her own worthiness to be loved by her partner on Romeo or the uneasiness of wondering if she’s being watched while she’s home alone on Noises. The latter song is particularly funny and charming.

Fancy That ends up more an exercise in refinement rather than reinvention for PinkPantheress, but it nonetheless proves that she knows her strengths down to a tee, and she remains one to watch as the quintessential outsider of modern pop.