At the beginning of the year, Jane Remover told Billboard they had thrown away an entire album of proper pop tracks: “If it came out,” they explained, “I was going to be, like, main pop girl. And I didn’t want that.” Even if a bit self-aggrandizing, the claim doesn’t seem too far-fetched. They had first found a taste of fame with hyperactive pop mutilations, and even their subsequent pivots towards soupy digital shoegaze or pulverizing rage-pop-rap didn’t halt the 22-year-old’s ascent into cult stardom. Now, after their most prolific and prominent year yet, Jane Remover offers a small taste of that pop record. Full of perfect hooks and fresh dance-inspired beats, the six songs on ♡ back up Jane Remover’s claims as a master crafter of pop songs.
♡ highlights Jane Remover’s ability to translate their wide-ranging tastes into wildly imaginative pop packages. “Magic I Want U” takes a loose Think break and peppers it with euphoric synths and VST guitars; it feels equally indebted to ’90s freestyle artists like Lisa Lisa and Alisha and aligned with buzzy pop peers like underscores and Quadeca. “Music Baby” is built around a romantic Jersey club groove—and not the mainstream abstraction of Jersey club that’s run amok in recent years, but a far more accurate homage to protogenitors like DJ Tameil and DJ Tim Dolla. When artists invoke that famed kick pattern these days, it often feels like fishing with cheap bait, but Jane Remover’s adaptations make “Music Baby” feel more sincere and passionate.
Jane Remover has never been afraid to jack a recent trend or two, though. “Flash in the Pan” begins as a queerification of Cash Cobain’s insatiable sexy drill groove, but then collapses into a pit of noisy digital shoegaze. The reggaeton influence on “How to Teleport,” though, sticks out like a sore thumb, failing to gel as well as the regional club influences on other tracks. The EP slows to a halt with “Dream Sequence,” an alt-rock meditation that reworks old material from their own indie-rock project as venturing. The track is a tasteful palette cleanser reminiscent of digi-centric rock artists like Parannoul, even if the lethargic shoegaze feels like it’s coming from a bygone version of Jane Remover.
♡ is full of delicious moments that feel like biting into a rich chocolate-covered strawberry: the falsetto runs at the end of “Magic I Want U,” the subtle “rock ya hips” sample littered throughout “Music Baby,” or the impressive use of scratching across the whole EP. Songs about partying with your crush are nothing new, but Jane Remover delivers theirs with a playful juvenility that makes the emotional expression on ♡ feel novel. The EP’s indulgent sound and thoughtful embellishments make you wonder what new spin on radio pop might result from getting Jane Remover in, say, a Tate McRae or KATSEYE writers room.
More than half of the EP’s songs are tweaked versions of older material: In addition to “Dream Sequence,” there’s reworked versions of “Magic I Want U” and “Flash in the Pan,” and a slightly extended version of “How to Teleport.” Across the board, the changes are noticeable but minimal. There’s no major updates to their vocals or production, just a replaced sample here and a tiny coda there. “Nooo I miss when it sounded like shit,” Jane Remover wrote in a since-deleted tweet about the new version of “Magic I Want U.” But even if that were true, it doesn’t feel like the small patch is doing much upheaval. These versions aren’t going to win over any new fans, but the changes aren’t significant enough to dampen the quality of the material, either. (The original versions are still widely available, anyways.) It makes you wonder: Why do this at all?
Thanks to the living nature of digital music, maybe the answer is simply “because they can.” Jane Remover has long been interested in all the various ways music can be released, tinkered with, re-released, or even deleted in the digital era. Earlier this year, for example, they released an entire mixtape of rage rap on SoundCloud, then took it down after a few hours. Jane Remover’s fans have made fun out of hunting down and sharing the old versions of their songs, like a community of digital Deadheads trading Google Drive links and buried YouTube playlists like bootleg tapes. There will be a line where the interesting thought experiment of reinventing old tracks turns into the awkwardness of refusing to let material live out its own lifespan. But until the day Jane Remover deletes a new opus and opts to release the 15th rework of “Magic I Want U” because it still sounds “like shit,” it doesn’t seem like their tinkering with the past will prevent them from living in the present.
