Before Kacy Hill signed with Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. Music, she was a backup dancer on West’s Yeezus Tour. The women “dancing” on that tour were primarily clad in skintight bodysuits, with stockings over their faces. This might sound a little bit dehumanizing for Hill, but her pre-tour CV touts her modeling for American Apparel, whose softcore ads are not unlike Hill’s debut album, Like a Woman, in one important respect: Its overt sexuality obscures the fact that it isn’t selling anything original. At least AA’s rainbow-hued basics and hoodies were functional; Hill’s album is more muted, full of inscrutable lyrics buried under piano-ballad drama. It’s a strangely retrograde look for an artist affiliated with such an ostensibly forward-thinking crew.
In the video for “Like a Woman,” Hill can be found masturbating on the back of a public bus and touching herself in bed, oiled up and dressed in flesh-colored vinyl lingerie. The song is about trying to deny someone affection despite the carnal feelings they inspire in her. “I’m sayin’ things I thought that I wouldn’t/And now you caught me, remind me of my beatin’ heart,” she sings in the chorus. Juxtaposing lyrics about forbidden desires with a video full of self-love would be clever if it hadn’t already been done first, and better, by so many other pop musicians (see, for instance, Hailee Steinfeld’s girl-power confection “Love Myself” and Tove Lo’s entire album Lady Wood).
Production on the minimalist piano ballad was handled by DJDS, Terrace Martin, and DJ Mustard, whose presence barely registers beyond a few finger snaps and inorganic bass notes. This is the mood of the entire album: Futuristic and exploratory sensuality is buried underneath maudlin brooding. You can hear it on the Florence Welch-pantomiming “Hard to Love,” as well as “Say You’re Wrong,” which is full of subdued, dubstep-adjacent bass. The music wants to exist in Kanye’s experimentalist playground, but it’s constrained by an adult-contemporary sheath that simply isn’t sexy, no matter how hard it tries to be.
One wonders what exactly inspired this moodiness. If Hill were a fan of someone like Tori Amos, the foggy drama of her voice and the melancholy backdrops she sings over might make sense. Instead, she’s cited ’90s rock radio titans like Third-Eye Blind, Semisonic, Tonic, and the Cranberries as her inspirations. “There’s almost this melancholy element to all of those kind of songwriters,” she told The FADER in 2015. “There’s a dark element to the pop songs, too. There are songs that you can dance to, but then it’s, like, a really depressing song! Or, just very introspective.” But you can’t dance to anything on “Like a Woman,” and if you’re looking for introspection, the lyrics don’t reveal much of that, either: “Stripped down from all that’s holy, with narcoleptic hoping/It’s okay to look straight without naive impulsions,” she sings in the chorus of the ironically titled “Clarity.” In order to stand out in the overpopulated world of brooding, downcast pop, Hill will need to be more inventive: Competing with artists like Banks, who makes genuinely interesting visual choices, and Bishop Briggs, one of the style’s most powerful new voices, she hasn’t set herself apart from the pack.
The album still manages some interesting moments. The Swedish producer and Giorgio Moroder collaborator Oskar Sikow adds perky flourishes to “Cruel” and The Life of Pablo collaborator DJDS’s woozy production on “Keep Me Sane,” “Static,” and “Interlude” facilitates some of her finest performances on the record. Her voice rarely ventures beyond a drama-club lilt, but you can hear her having a little bit more fun here. One wishes that Hill had benefitted from a slew of producers from the Kanye Brain Trust instead of just one; alternately, DJDS could have helped her navigate the whole ride—thus avoiding pitfalls like the bland synth detailing on tracks helmed by Madonna and Pet Shop Boys producer Stuart Price. Hill has said she’s using the album to explore her sexuality, but the music would benefit if she also considered sound as worthy a subject of investigation. She certainly has the mentor to help her do it.
