There’s a lot riding on this. Hayley Kiyoko, the 26-year-old former Disney star, is one of pop’s few openly gay female artists, whose fans have taken to calling her “lesbian Jesus.” It’s tongue in cheek, but speaks to the hunger for representation among marginalized fandoms—the hoards who flocked to Kiyoko’s early music videos, which offered rare representations of relationships and flirtations between women. Kiyoko now has to balance their interests against her own budding pop star identity, plus the demands of the mainstream that she (and label Empire/Atlantic) evidently want her to break into: Expectations seems like a particularly loaded title.
For her part, Kiyoko seems ambitious. The album comes with a kind of conceptual architecture: opening with the “Expectations (Overture),” and containing a pair of two-part song suites, plus an interlude called “xx.” The sound of the sea and distant birds sometimes color the edges of the songs, giving a rough sense of a contained world, but not much more than that. It doesn’t seem like a leap of faith to guess that the elegant storytelling of Melodrama was an inspiration here, though Expectations doesn’t really use its structure for neat narrative or stylistic tricks in the way that Lorde did.
For one thing, it lacks that kind of songwriting consistency. The obsessive “Wanna Be Missed” has the breathy luster of a forgotten cut off the Fifty Shades of Grey soundtrack, although Kiyoko’s ecstatic crescendo lands with a thud on the blankly intoned line, “I’ve never felt nothing like that,” as if waking up from dental anesthesia. “Let It Be,” the song that closes the album, and puts a lid on the tempestuous relationship that courses throughout, is as stompy of feet and jingly of bell as the Lumineers. “Palm Dreams,” a cheap postcard to Los Angeles life, sounds oddly dated and features a refrain (“Party with us”) that sounds swept from Justin Timberlake’s cutting-room floor. It’s the only song here featuring anything close to a blue-chip songwriter, in “Boom Clap” co-writer Fredrik Berger, which may indict the resources and priority levels afforded to this album.
Those are the most disparate parts of a truly enjoyable if rarely remarkable record, one that lacks the budget of high-end pop but aspires to its trappings. Kiyoko isn’t yet a particularly distinctive vocalist, but “confrontational” is a mode that really suits her. Single “Curious” has a similarly choreographed shuffle in its chorus to Dua Lipa’s “New Rules,” and contains a few pin-sharp barbs worthy of Lorde: “Did you take him to the pier in Santa Monica?” Kiyoko taunts at a girl who’s dropped her for a dude. “Forget to bring your jacket/Wrap up in him ‘cause you wanted to?” Plus it has a perfectly turned kiss-off: “I’m just curious,” she sings, with icy mocking: “Is it serious?” (That and a textbook pop pause pre-chorus: one of those brilliant, tiny spaces that feels like taking a breath before a giant leap.)
Similarly barbed is “He’ll Never Love You (HNLY)” which balances Kiyoko’s well-worn weariness with the rigmarole of being a straight girl’s experiment with deservedly bratty, indignant delivery. This is Expectations at its best: Kiyoko trading in specificity rather than generic neediness, representing an experience that rarely finds an outlet in pop (see also: Years & Years’ brilliant “Sanctify”). The writing on “What I Need” might not be of the same standard, but duetting with Kehlani on a certified Bisexual Bop is inspired, and has legs as a genuine hit if the label is prepared to attempt to push a queer love song into the mainstream. Given that Halsey and Lauren Jauregui’s comparable “Strangers” scraped the Billboard 100 at… 100, I wouldn’t hold your breath. Kiyoko’s debut won’t blow past anyone’s expectations, but it contains just enough intrigue and individuality to sustain them for a second shot.
