by @pop3blow2
Pop culture comes at you fast.
If you read my other two Little Boots write ups for @soratami’s Quirky Girl Rates my love & adoration of one Victoria Hesketh is pretty clear.
Ironically though, in the summer of 2015 there was a disruption in the force. Three syllables : E•mo•tion. Three letters: CRJ.
I say ironically, because in the summer 2012, one Carly Rae Jepsen found herself in my angsty pop crosshairs. It wasn’t that I didn’t like her, but on more than one occasion I pretentiously pointed to ‘Call Me Maybe’ as a frustrating example of how the GP ‘gets it wrong’. I mean, how could a fine, but kinda mediocre song like ‘Call Me Maybe’ become a global hit & launch this former Canadian Idol Contestant to global acclaim… while my dear Little Boots was producing far superior music & languishing? It just wasn’t fair.
Oh, irony can be cruel.
Working Girl released in early July of 2015. Like her previous two albums, I was pretty hyped… though admittedly maybe slightly less so than the last two. There was no real reason for this. The album is a bit of a mood & that’s how it goes sometimes. I was enjoying the singles from the album & while the vibe was certainly different from her previous efforts, I was enjoying the indie-ness of the whole thing.
That said, after a month with the album it was starting to grow on me quite a bit more. Things were clicking. I really started appreciating the whole story that album was telling about nature of working women & a meta look at Little Boots as a self-made-indie-boss-lady.
It was clicking up until mid August when the booming of saxophone of track one of an a little album by that other aforementioned artist in this rate.
For all practical purposes my music year was over after hearing Emotion. The grip that album had on me was intense. Mandy Moore & Vanessa Carlton could’ve recorded an album together produced by Nelly Furtado & it would’ve struggled to get my full attention.
Slowly though, by the end of year, I started to assemble my year end playlists & revisit some other music. Emerging from my Carly-Rae haze, I was like, ‘oh yeah, Little Boots put out a record this past summer.’
So, I started to revisit more. Doing my typical weird comparison game…. I started to put it up track for track against Emotion. It was then that I started to realize how truly amazing it was. Since I had decided Emotion was the ’Thriller’ of its generation , I basically landed on Working Girl being the ‘1999’. Yeah, I know, come for me…. I guess!
Sometimes my brain applies macro concepts to my little micro world. This comparison is probably the perfect example of that! Not only were Michael Jackson & Prince on a complete other level of global stardom in 1982 than my two beloved pop queens, they were, well, men. This creates a whole other interesting cultural lens for my brain to dissect the two albums through, but I’ll have to that another time.
Sonically the the comparison hold up a little. Emotion had its experimental moments, but was designed to be perfect pop record in the tradition of those great albums of the 80s. Working Girl on the other hand, was clearly the work of someone in a more experimental mode. It’s a concept album for all practical purposes. Sure there are bops on Working Girl, but there’s also a certain anxiety & very millennial claustrophobia that run through a lot of the album.
Of course, commercially speaking that analogy is trash for both albums, but on artistic level I think the comparison holds up to an extent. Also, growing up I read more than my fair share of pieces about Thriller. There were some for 1999, but it clearly felt overshadowed. In recent years though, I feel the album getting more love & pointing to just how important it was.
Really the macro/micro comparison I’m clinging onto here stems from one thing. Much like Thriller sucked most of the oxygen out of the pop discussion in 1982, Emotion did that for me in 2015. There was a period where literally noting else mattered & honestly I’m still waiting to hear something else that capture my imagination the same way.
Even Little Boots would become a smitten fan of our dear Carly though, eventually penning ‘Crying On The Inside’ as a song with her mind. What makes me cry on the inside is just how poorly two of my favorite pop people of all time fare commercially. *sigh*
While this rate included a couple of great songs from the album, there are sooooo many highlights on Working Girl. I could go on here much longer. ‘Help Too’ is the one, though. It’s quite possibly my second favorite Little Boots songs of all time (will anything ever top ’Stuck On Repeat’?), which is really all I need to say. Buried 10 tracks into this masterpiece of an album is 5 minutes of lush vulnerability I don’t think she’s topped since. It’s the only collaboration with Dan Nigro on the album & it’s so special. I can’t decide if I want her to work more with him or if I want this song to just exist as one-off state of perfection.
Our fantastic host & I had a tough decision nailing down the Little Boots’ songs for the this rate. The parameters were needed for the rate to even happen in fair way, but leaving so many potentially great Boots songs on the sideline was painful.
I fought for ’No Pressure’ which sonically I think captures the overall vibe of the album better than anything. ’Taste It’ & ‘FROOT’ will forever remain tied together in my head. Not only do they kinda tackle some of the same concepts through similar metaphors, but they came out around the the same time. It’s every bit as quirky as ‘FROOT’, too. I fear it would’ve gotten destroyed here, though. (It is the most played song from the album on Spotify, which is a tad interesting to me.)
‘Real Girl’ & Business Pleasure’ also deserve a quick shout out, here. I also love the little interludes that tie the album together. It really is a complete work.
Ultimately, for this die-hard Little Boots fan Working Girl has become my favorite album by her. I really do think it’s a bit of a masterpiece & I wish it got more attention. Maybe its day will come.
“In my head a thousand words
I don't want to cause you trouble
Without you I'm just a girl
No reward without the struggle
I've tried so hard”
