Is the internet ready to be normal about Lola Young yet? Oh, I forgot: she’s trapped in digital purgatory. Since everyone has moved on from Doechii, and hating on Chappell Roan is so passé, the 24-year-old English songwriter has become the public’s designated punching bag through the end of Q3. A few more months, maybe years of intense and vacuous criticism from Twitter’s pop stans, and only then she will face two fates after the dust settles: be forgotten to time or evolve into a misunderstood pop prophet. I guess we’ll have to wait for now.
Young is not the only new pop artist to face the eternal damnation of being woman’d—and she certainly will not be the last. After years of cultivation, the English artist broke into the mainstream with “Messy,” an anthem written just as much for fuck-ups as it was for persistent people pleasers. Singing about an ex’s impossible standards, ironically, no one could make anything of the track. Like clockwork, the hounds descended: Was “Messy” heartbreaking, or flat out annoying? Is Young an attention-seeking masochist, or is she holding up a mirror to the world, refracting back how we all feel about ourselves? On the singer’s third album I’m Only F**king Myself, she turns the oversharing dial up to eleven, painting a portrait of a twenty-something’s angst, ennui, and insecurity against a backdrop of indie-rock leanings.
Young wrote I’m Only Fking Myself not just in the aftermath of “Messy”’s sudden rise, but as she was in recovery for drug addiction. She spends the record traversing her romantic conquests and casts floodlights onto her mistakes, always with an air of humor. On “d£aler,” she daydreams about leaving everything behind, declaring that not even her neighbor would notice she was gone. “I wanna get away, far from here,” she sings over a tinny, Clairo-esque beat. “Pack my bags and tell my dealer I’ll miss him.” Self-deprecation is etched into the code of Myself and not only showcases Young as an adept songwriter but as a comic with a dark edge, too. The album’s lo-fi acoustic closer “who fking cares?” finds Young caught in a nihilistic funk. While everyone else seems to be on an upward trajectory, she’s holed up in her room, drowning everything out with Radiohead. “Someday I might get there/But in the meantime, who fucking cares?” she hums, just before one final zinger: “‘Cause it’s definitely not me!”
This brashness is precisely what makes I’m Only Fking Myself so appealing. In an endless sea of Gen-Z pop stars whose takes on rock range from generation-defining career catapults to half-baked albums overshadowed by public personality, Young isn’t afraid to get… well, messy. With this gives-no-fucks modus operandi, she wields her raspy yet soulful voice to evoke rage, despair, and bliss across Myself’s fourteen tracks (there’s one moment where Young lets out a throaty growl on “SPIDERS” and sounds exactly like Lira Mondal of Sweeping Promises). The sweaty sway of “One Thing” finds her cooing to a prospective lover, but swerves to yelping affirmations of breaking furniture, akin to Remi Wolf, whom Young is frequently compared to. On the radiant “Walk All Over You,” a mischievous twinkle in her eye sparks into an ember while she details a lover who treats her like rubbish on the street. I’m Only Fking Myself’s lesser moments are usually overtaken by stale tropes (namely “Penny Out of Nothing”’s evocations of converting atheists to God-fearing beggars). Myself has plenty of viable break up ballads (“SAD SOB STORY! :)”), but they pale in comparison to the stream of consciousness lyricism “Messy.” Still, Young’s deeply candid and comical takes on herself outshine the record’s less realized tracks.
With innuendos abound, Young’s ultra-blue depictions of sex tend to attract shallow insults from PopCrave constituents, reviled by her openness. An electric skronker like “F**K EVERYONE” sees Young overtly proclaiming her wanting to screw anyone, anywhere; and this happens to include your ex and your dad. I imagine this song would go over well if someone with a cool and collected sexuality (like Billie Eilish and, to a lesser extent, Reneé Rapp) sang it, but it’s yet another example of the public’s insatiable desire to lay into the latest female singer, whether she’s too proud of her sexuality or too private. The public might be scrambling because Young disrupts their standard for sex positive women; they expect a girl who winks but never nudges, a girl who’s a lady in the streets but a freak in the bed. Many of these fervent critics don’t want to admit they’ve likely mirrored Lola Young behind closed doors and underneath sheets. In some ways, she recalls your girlfriend who talks just a bit too loudly about her sexual conquests at your Sunday brunch. Even if you’re shocked by her lewdness, you love her all the same because she’s not afraid to say the quiet part out loud.
Jaeden Pinder is a writer based in Brooklyn, NY by way of South Florida. She has written for Pitchfork and Stereogum.
