Hi, my name is Matty Lamp, and welcome to Footnotes, my series of album reviews posted exclusively on The Trumpet!
For this series, I pick a new album released each month to give my honest opinion on. I look at the instrumentation, lyrics, and the overall vibe of the album. At the end, I rate the album out of ten.
For May, I am going to review an album (or rather, mixtape: the body of work is only 2o minutes and 28 seconds long) that I have been VERY excited to listen to: Fancy That by UK singer-songwriter and producer PinkPantheress.
With the charmingly English Y2K imagery of the mixtape’s music videos and album cover (reminiscent of Fergie’s The Dutchess, maybe a nod to the “London Bridge?”) and the twinkly, cutesy production, Fancy That transports you into a glittery, futuristic universe with Pink as the main character (and you as her possible love interest.)
Without further ado, let’s dive into Fancy That!
Illegal:
From the jump, Pink makes sure you know she’s the center of this world she’s created, starting“Illegal” with: “My name is Pink and I’m really glad to meet you/you’re recommended to me by some people/Hey, is this illegal/Hey, it feels illegal.” The main components of this song are a simple, stabbing synth progression, a light drum and bass pattern, and layered, reverbed vocals. The song is soft and floaty, but powerful.
Pink recounts this relationship like being on a paranoid marijuana trip, wanting to remember their name and communicate with them normally, but her nerves getting the best of her and not talking to them. This song is a good set-up for the tone of the rest of the mixtape.
Girls Like Me:
The sound of camera flashes and a bouncy beat from “Illegal” transitions into this song, which has a similar vibe but feels more sad and uncertain. The listener can infer that “Girls Like Me” happens after Pink gets together with this mystery person, but she is unhappy with how the relationship is turning out. She laments about their lack of communication and how draining it feels to be involved with them: “I’m not a fan of the way we’re movin’/No hesitation when I remove this…Think of me, you can’t pay for therapy (For therapy)/Nothing left to bleed, you spent all your clarity (Clarity.)”
Tonight:
This song is one of her singles off the mixtape, and I immediately loved it. It draws you in with a creepy, Phantom of the Opera-style violin lick (a pitched-up sample from Panic at the Disco!’s “Do You Know What I’m Seeing, yet another nod to the 2000s.) However, it quickly drops into a fun, upbeat track about taking a further, more risque step in Pink’s relationship. The lyrics are pretty explicit about her intentions with this person, but she still expresses that “anticipation makes me feel like throwing up.” Pink’s choice to include “Tonight” as her lead single was a good one, as it is a good cross-section of both the style and theme of Fancy That.
Stars:
While “Stars” is technically pretty similar to many of the other songs on Fancy That, I still found it to be a fun little surprise. The track is composed of another sample (Just Jack’s “Starz in Their Eyes.) “Stars” has more of a jumpy, club sound with a darker meaning when you take a look at the chorus: “Things are getting darker in the city/Please find your way out of the city/Describe your love out of the city/It’s getting darker in the city.”
In some other lyrics, she implies either figurative themes of mixed communication from a partner and feelings of self-doubt, or literal themes of drug dealing and other violent crimes. The latter can especially be inferred in the bridge where an unnamed man talks to Pink about meeting up secretly: Yeah, I’m gon’ be there in ten minutes, make sure you got the stuff/I don’t have any of your stuff/Don’t test me, you know I can’t talk about this on the cellphone…If it turns out you the cops, we’re done doing business.” The song is an interesting look into what could potentially be specific lived experiences from Pink living in London.
Intermission:
The intermission copies some of the repeated lines from “Stars” and other songs: “You need somebody? Baby, just call me.” it makes you feel like you’re swirling down the drain with the muffled vocals and a dreadful downwards pitch shift, but then she says “Let’s switch the vibe a little,” and it transitions into the song “Noises.”
Noises:
“Noises” starts with a low, funky guitar line and samples the 2021 song “Who Want Smoke?” by Nardo Wick. In this song, Pink continues the paranoid thought stream, saying that she thinks someone is knocking on her door, and she is wondering if someone broke into her house because she bought marijuana off of someone and didn’t pay him. The song can act like a second intermission because it is only 1 minute 44 seconds long and is pretty simple in terms of lyricism.
Nice to Know You:
“Nice to Know You” brings back the somber violins from the beginning of “Tonight” as Pink sings about a messy breakup with this person. The chorus brings in higher-pitched strings and the sound of glass breaking to give you the feeling like you just broke up with her and said the wrong thing and now she’s even more upset with you: Nothing’s really sane, but everything’s amazing/Slowly taking over me/Baby, have you noticed the sky is rearranging?/Unemotional, you were nice to know.” Throughout these songs, Pink paints a picture that she is stuck in a relationship with someone who isn’t emotionally available and always leaves her guessing as to what she means to them.
Stateside:
Again, another one of my favorites off the mixtape. This song is cheeky and features more of her isolated vocals against simple but punctuated synth and drum lines. She flirts with an unnamed American boy whom she is flying overseas to visit: “Never been abroad before/Now I’m knocking through your door/But you’re nice, so I’ll stay
Nevеr met a British girl, you say?” In the chorus, she chants “You can be my American, ha ha, Boy,” which is a reference to the 2008 song “American Boy” by Estelle and Kanye West. “Stateside” is insanely catchy and an easier listen compared to some of the other songs off of Fancy That (it got stuck in my head for a week.)
Romeo:
Pink swaps out the dnb-type beats for a 50s-style energetic surf rock drum with “Romeo,” leaning into a dramatic and romantic vibe that gets faster and more desperate in the chorus. Pink sings about how her relationship with this person was largely unrequited and that everyone told her not to waste her time, even though she crushed on this person hard. In her head, she learned her lesson, but she still can’t shake the feeling: “Step one, don’t let yourself fall in love, ‘Cause that is not fun/Step two, ah, Romeo/There’s something in the air tonight.” Of course, the song is also chock-full of “Romeo and Juliet” references, signaling a “death” to her tragic relationship. The song wraps up the mixtape and the chronicles of her drug-dealing lover with a nice little plaid bow.
As a PinkPantheress fan, this album was very satisfying and exciting to listen to. I am not exaggerating when I say that I have been listening to parts of this album every day since it came out. PinkPantheress is very talented as a producer and as a storyteller, and I am glad that she is rightfully getting her flowers. Fancy That is a beautiful little galaxy that balances both high-energy and angelic production with deeper themes that people who aren’t reading the lyrics may not even pick up on on first listen.
I will be giving this album an 8.5. While it would have been nice to get a tiny bit more variation in the first half of the mixtape, it definitely was not a dealbreaker, as I was obsessed with the sound. Plus, since the length of Fancy That is pretty short, I never felt like any of the themes were too overdone or that the track list was too bloated.
That’s all for now! If you have any suggestions for which album I should review next, email us at [email protected]. There will not be an album review for June or July due to summer break, so I will see you in August!
