5 In The Morning
I heard 5 In The Morning
and realized how completely she’d settled into herself. Not the version still trying to figure it out—the version who already knows.
I’ve been listening since True Romance. That album got ignored at first, then became the kind of thing people claimed they’d always loved. She followed it by writing pop for other people—”I Love It” for Icona Pop, Fancy
with Iggy Azalea that went number one. She became the person whose taste was shaping what pop sounded like, even if most people never noticed her name in the credits.
She said something about her approach that I didn’t forget: I’ve never written a song to sound cool or whatever. I write everything the way it comes out of my head. I’d call it raw pop. That’s pretty close to what I am on stage—nowhere near polished. Soft, bland music bores me.
It’s a refusal, basically. A refusal to make what everyone expects.
5 In The Morning
is what that conviction sounds like when it’s complete. No doubt, no performance. Just creating what she actually wants.
There’s always the fear that people like this get ground down—that eventually the business wears them into compliance, and they start making what they’re supposed to instead of what they want. But some people are too stubborn to let that happen. She’s always been too strange. I don’t think she’s ever going to be the kind of famous that needs her to be normal.