PinkPantheress used to crank out new songs nearly every day, releasing these bite-sized, hooky and minimal pop songs on TikTok to a small audience. It didn’t take long, however, for the ’90s drum and bass samples, dreamy synths and high breathy vocals to spread on the platform like wildfire. These songs stitched together sticky choruses, ear-catching production and virality in tiny packages, usually shorter than two minutes long. Her brand of R&B is instantly recognizable and influential on the pop music landscape, bringing back and modernizing these genres of music that haven’t been prominent in decades.
When it came to releasing her debut album Nov. 10, PinkPantheress had to follow up her biggest hit thus far, “Boy’s a liar Pt. 2,” while also keeping her sound interesting despite mainstream pop picking up on her easily replicable formula. Just leave it to one of the most inventive producers of this decade to effortlessly meet these expectations on “Heaven knows.”
PinkPantheress uses this debut to break past the niche she has established for herself. All of the songs on this record make it past the two minute mark and expand her stylistic vocabulary as she branches out into various sub genres of pop, R&B and hip-hop. The album starts off boldly with “Another life,” which opens on a sinister organ riff and rumbling thunder before her signature breakbeat drum loop and dreamy synth progressions come in. While staying true to her established sound, PinkPantheress also adds in a curveball feature from afrobeats rapper Rema and a brief guitar solo to close it out. Many songs on this album carry the same spirit as this one: an evolution of PinkPantheress’ sound that doesn’t alienate fans from what they have come to expect from her.
While her 2021 mixtape, “To Hell With It,” was more of a thrown together collection of hits, “Heaven knows” ties together a lyrical narrative surrounding fragile relationships. The disco infused “The aisle” outlines a destructive on-and-off toxic relationship, with a dark element of yearning: “I ruined all my friendships with you / And I think I’m running out of people to lose / I only have to give you my motion / And you always find your way right back to me.” This destructiveness is also shown through the naive and parasocial “True romance,” which shows the perspective of an obsessive fan as she sings, “I’ve been a fan of you since 2004 / You know you got me / So much, I took my loving over there / I got a tattoo just to show how much I care / But there’s so many girls around you that I’m scared.”
Each song is a vignette of crumbling romances and unhealthy attachments, which all converge on the epic and expansive penultimate track, “Capable of love,” which is both a thesis statement for “Heaven knows” and also one of PinkPantheresses’ most impactful songs to date. “I’m obsessed with the idea that one day it breaks up / ’Cause after that, I know I’ll never be as capable of love / After you,” she explains, offering that the perfect and innocent perception of love dissolves with emotional maturity. However, it never loses meaning. She repeats in earnest at the end of the song: “Three little words, dedicate them to me / Please make them personal, then say them to me.”
Her songs sound more fleshed out and fully realized than ever as she weaves through fusion after fusion. Not all of these ventures are fruitful however; the interlude, “Internet baby,” provides a nice expansion on the album’s lyrical exploration of romantic uncertainty and idolization, but the constant melodic repetitions don’t pair well with the lack of a song structure. Even worse is her try at UK drill in the song “Nice to meet you,” which starts off well but gets completely ruined by a phoned-in verse from Central Cee, who spends his entire time bragging about cheating on a partner, even throwing in the line, “I might risk it for a biscuit” to really emphasize the corniness.
Luckily, the other features on this album are perfectly placed. The duet between PinkPantheress and Kelela on “Bury me” is a volley between two of the most heavenly voices in alternative R&B, with Kelela’s rich textured vocals contrasting perfectly with the thin and fragile voice PinkPantheress uses. And of course, Ice Spice’s now iconic verse on “Boy’s a liar Pt. 2” closes out the album on an anthemic note, a victory lap for an album that cements PinkPantheress as an artist with more staying power than is usually allotted by TikTok virality.
