8.1

GENRE: Rap    
YEAR OF RELEASE: 2022

What does love mean to you? Does it make everything perfect? Or is it just one more risk to take in your already complicated life? Dirt Femme, Tove Lo’s fifth album, is an open attempt at answering these questions of love and passion, fear and insecurity, femininity, and everything in between. An expert in music that cuts deep but leaves you wanting more, the singer creates an unabashed body of work that doesn’t shy away from the questions we often fear the answers to. Instead, she puts on some spandex bodysuits and drives full-speed against her fears by applying the blunt lyricism she built her career with over ‘80s synth-pop, pumping beats, and sadness-edging chord progressions.

Dirt Femme is a prime example of her ability to blend emotions and excellent production into tracks that demand to be sung out loud at full volume. Yes, she’s done it before: with 2014’s sad-and-horny self-destructive breakout hit “Habits,” with 2016’s passionate single “True Disaster,” and with 2019’s get-under-to-get-over gem “Glad He’s Gone.” But on her new record, Tove Lo has become comfortable at saying more in fewer words, doing it while giving you atmospheric instrumentals to move to until you’re tired. Opener “No One Dies From Love,” released first as a single, brings the audience into a passionate goodbye that keeps all its edges rough. In contrast to the upbeat production, the lyrics paint a tragic picture: “Will you remember us?/Or are the memories too stained with blood now?” This is one of Tove Lo’s greatest strengths as a writer: setting a tragedy to music that ultimately makes you wanna dance the pain away.

But the glowing production doesn’t take away from the sincerity of Tove Lo’s delivery. In the following track, “Suburbia,” the lyrics openly describe a fear of a cookie-cutter lifestyle. Despite the lyric’s assurance that the love is real, she can’t change the fact that she prefers to live hers unplanned, away from domesticity. But the song’s bridge takes it in a different direction—what if she’s just unsure about what she wants? It becomes a test of faith for her lover as well, a question of what their love can withstand. It’s a track that displays real fears and a desire to be open about them, representing a refusal to accept a life she’s not ready for.

And then, after years of flirting with a poppier attitude onstage, Tove Lo finally takes on a different persona: the bodysuit-type pop girl. She scratches her lycra outfit and gets sensual on “2 Die 4,” an electrifying synthpop that samples Gershon Kingsley’s 1972 classic “Pop Corn,” for which she became a Tik Tok sensation over the summer. On “Kick In The Head,” she shows a newly-acquired swag and breathes her voice into slinky beats and woozy, filtered hums. Apart from 2019’s “Jacques” from her fourth record Sunshine Kitty, “Kick In The Head” is perhaps the most sophisticated and relaxed she’s ever sounded.

The album changes pace at “True Romance,” a raw, vocally-powerful ballad that speaks of a love so deep the speaker would kill or die for it. Its slow tempo and heavy subject matter ground the album in a darker tone. Without the expected fast-paced production that balances her other emotional songs, this track has an undeniable gravity. By the time “Grapefruit” comes on, it abruptly shifts the album’s focus from romantic love to a reflection on body dysmorphia. Tove Lo’s repetition of, “How am I back here again…How am I still in this fight,” represents a person unable to break the thought pattern that haunts their self-image. Alongside the counting motif that runs throughout the song, referencing the practice of counting calories, Trove Lo uses this track to represent the frustrations and pain this battle causes. While the placement may feel unexpected, it is also further evidence of the artist’s willingness to have upfront conversations about the things that people find uncomfortable to confront.

Dirt Femme feels designed to keep listeners on an emotional roller-coaster, moving from high to low and then high again, with both subject matter and production keeping the audience unsure of what might come next. But, some transitions are smoother than others, such as from “Attention Whore” to “Pineapple Slice.” Both songs are clear: she knows exactly what she wants, and she enjoys getting it. Tove Lo has never shied away from talking about sex, and these tracks are clever proof of that. In “Attention Whore” not only does she want the attention she’s asking for, but she also insists it stays solely on her. “Pineapple Slice,” the second of her two collaborations with SG Lewis on the album, serves as an intimate story about what comes next, playing with the urban myth that eating pineapple makes your body fluids taste sweeter. “Use your tongue, it turns me on/Make me moan,” she demands over ‘70s glam and disco beats. Yep, she’s that direct.

The standout track comes towards the end with the Oasis-inspired “I’m to Blame.” This is Tove Lo’s most stripped-back song on the album, and in fact, the most different from any song she has ever done. It’s not as raw as “True Romance,” but the piano, acoustic guitar, and use of claps and hip-hop drums to keep the rhythm pair perfectly with her smooth voice, which echoes in a reverb production akin to Brit rock bands from the ‘90s. Expressing guilt and questioning what seems like an inevitable heartbreak, her vocals build beautifully in a crescendo over acoustic guitars until they settle again as the song dies gently. It slightly resembles the feeling of yearning and abandonment in 2017’s “9th of October,” the saddest non-single on her third album Blue Lips, albeit here she’s taking the fall alone and not projecting the blame onto her lover.

Musically, Dirt Femme doesn’t represent wild experimentation with new genres; it is rather a sophistication of the style Tove Lo has spent years working in. But unlike work from her earlier years, which at times could become overwhelmed by the production style, this album presents a smooth blend between vocals and instrumentation, with a glossy finish that makes all of it shine as her clubbiest and most synthpop record yet. With some of her most muscular lyricism to date, her voice comes through clearly in every word, painting very graphic pictures of the things many of us are scared to voice. Facing both our deepest desires and insecurities head-on takes bravery that demands focus, and Tove Lo’s unflinching attitude is a testament to her commitment to heartfelt art.

Listen to Dirt Femme: