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THIS IS FOR AQUARIUS. FOR NIGHTRIDE. FOR SONGS FOR YOU. FOR 333. FOR BB/ANG3L.

Get in and praise the lord

Tinashe's eighth album is her best and bravest yet: more ambitious, more focused, and effortlessly in touch with the zeitgeist. It's the best pop album of the year. Maybe you've noticed recently how evergreen pop-song subjects like love and fantasy have been supplanted by the "reality" of hustle and a meta-narrative. The inspirations and tribulations of life as a full-time entertainer are the subjects of many a recent female pop album, from debutantes and establishment icons alike: ADÉLA's PRIMA; JADE's THAT'S SHOWBIZ, BABY!; Ariana Grande's petal; Taylor Swift's The Life of a Showgirl; every Charli xcx album since Crash. I think this emergent phenomenon is like fifty percent a function of late-capitalist anxiety and fifty percent stan culture wagging the stars, but maybe it's one and the same thing. "The American Dream is outdated/Now they sittin' on the internet hatin'," as Tinashe puts it on "Crash Out," one of the dozens of brilliant little moments on Popstar, her new pop meta-narrative album to end pop meta-narrative albums. After this, hang it up. Popstar really is that good: top-shelf material with a sense of purpose—a compulsion, even—about connecting sounds circulating in pop, electronic, and dance music right now. Its rhythmic sensibility works both song-to-song and as a full-album listen. It's fresh in the best way—immediately accessible, a little bit avant-garde. And it's super recognizably Tinashe: her voice, taste, points of reference, backed by the kind of producer lineup a creative director would probably call "directional." She's got Arca and Machinedrum on the dial-up modem ("Sunglasses") and Kingdom's crazy "Closer"-meets-bassline production for "Nobody Wanna Dance Anymore" is in the lead for dancefloor makeout track of the year. She's playing into the self-aware theme by interpolating herself and the pop era she came up in. She knows when to step on the gas, and she will make the song too short before she ever gets bored. One of those recognizably Tinashe things is the hooks with a facility for zeitgeist phrases that would embarrass another artist. You could go the rest of your life without hearing the word "brainrot"? Me too, but not when I hear Tinashe sing "Brainrot," or "Crash Out" (a rather belated addition to Merriam-Webster this month), or "It gets to a point," or "We live in a society." It's not just her line readings or her longstanding knack for getting in on the joke: Somehow she's singing a little less than on past albums, not just when she's sing-rapping but because the Popstar toplines are so integral to the beats. It's as much about the melodies as the way their percussive qualities factor into the whole (brainrot, brainrot, brainrot)—this is something she's worked toward for a long time, really being part of the rhythm. On "Pillow Fight": "I was never innocent," with an echo on "innocent" that sounds like it's coming through the Britney mic; straight into a threat to whack you into bed that makes her sound like a featherweight Pusha T; then she says "tussle" so it sounds like "tesselate," there's a gorgeous harmony section, and it's over so fast. There are no bad Tinashe albums, but Popstar is more focused, more ambitious, more self-contained, and more broadly appealing. It's daring while still maintaining a universal power of public attraction shared with records like FutureSex/LoveSounds, Blackout, ANTI, and, more recently, Oklou's choke enough and FKA twigs' Eusexua. It pays homage to classic pop-album format with distinct first- and second-half arcs (which Tinashe upgrades by making the B side even stronger than the A side—record execs hate this one weird trick) and its sweet acoustic closing track (you may find this trope cloying but I like dessert; it's also a Britneyism). Popstar is so fashion-forward that there's already Nick Léon and umru remixes to fit in your going-out purse. It's going to land on the runway and on your favorite niche pop star's warm-up playlist within 48 hours. Many reference points for Popstar fall in the mid-to-late 2000s, but it's the concept that saves it from just feeling nostalgic. Tinashe sidesteps a potentially annoying aspect of the meta-narrative album—the lifestyle complaints—by reserving the jaded attitude for the big electric guitar relationship ballad ("I'd Rather Be Alone"), so her meta-narrative is all over the music. The exaggerated desperation of the star who lives for the job that's pushing her to the edge is an archetype in itself and she's totally convincing in the part. When Twista and Kanye promised to make you a celebrity overnight, "flop" wasn't in their vocabulary, but even pop-star fantasies aren't that hopeful anymore. Singing the blue-dot blues ("Don't want to die underrated"!) over the dramatic string flourish and uncanny reversed vocals in "Empty Stadium," Tinashe shows us where that story ends now. Popstar is so effective not because it's the nth album to walk the pop-girl tightrope in first-person POV but because the very bravest parts feel seasick, like we're up there with her and can't stop looking down. PitchforkTinashe: PopstarRead Anna Gaca's review of the album.

He's right and he should say it

Thank you @Florence Belch for an incredible rate you did amazing sweetie wish I could've been for more of the live results but busy boy.m4a (I was sleeping)

Sotm

This is so unlike me... I have no scores below 8 remaining

Honestly the remaining songs are all good so even if some of the eliminations or placements are disgusting at least it's all talent in

As it should be

are Here's Where the Story Ends and You're Not The Only One I Know the last remaining Sundays songs? That one is top 3

Not really no but cute attempt

The way I wrote the same thing but deleted it last minute Also it was a reason for me to give it a 10 not pan it damn

Horrid results congrats