Jessie Ware – ‘That! Feels! Good!’ album review
Jessie Ware was once on the brink of quitting the music industry due to her intense battle with imposter syndrome. After sacking her management team, Ware reinvented herself as a disco queen and her new album That! Feels! Good! sees the singer ramp up the fun even further across ten enthralling anthems as she finally realises her full potential.
That! Feels! Good! is the after-dark version of the James Ford-produced What’s Your Pleasure?, an adventurous album that she needed to make in order to reach to this point, but looks tame in comparison to the new release. On That! Feels! Good!, Ware has acquired even more disco lights, added an extra layer of unapologetic naughtiness, and delivered a neo-soul record that makes the listener want to get on the dancefloor. According to Ware, her fifth album is the result of letting go of “years of anxiety, imposter syndrome, and all that fretting,” which is evident from the confidence she struts on the opening titular track.
While Ware is a loving mother who co-hosts the hit podcast Table Manners with her own mother and even released a spin-off cookbook, that’s not her entire personality. Just because she’s now a responsible adult with children doesn’t mean the fun must stop, as she shows on the sensual That! Feels! Good! which is curated for a night of mischievous activity. As she sings on ‘Pearls’: “I’m so 9-5, I’m a lady, I’m a lover, a freak and a mother, Walking on the line, it’s in my human nature, I crave a little danger.”
The album doesn’t attempt to offer a deep meaning about the meaning of life through confessional lyricism but provides the listener with explosion after explosion of ecstasy. Once the buzz of the euphoric ‘Begin Again’ comes to a close, Ware supplies another intoxicating hit of elation in the form of ‘Beautiful People’.
Ware’s ability to create a gloriously catchy hook is her greatest strength and a skill she demonstrates best on the French house-influenced ‘Freak Me Now’. The equally dancefloor-ready ‘Free Yourself’, epitomises her new carefree spirit and fearless streak. In contrast, the sombre penultimate track, ‘Lighting’, is the musical equivalent of seeing the sunrise while you’re still on cloud nine and don’t want the night to end. Thankfully, ‘These Lips’ closes the album with one last groovy dose of escapism.
That! Feels! Good! celebrates life’s finest pleasures and invites the listener to leave their worries behind momentarily. While Ware was once engulfed by anxiety, her new album is self-assured and radiates hopefulness at every turn. It’s a disco record which is inherently forward-thinking, and while its origins lay in the past, the cutting-edge production has helped Ware make an album fit for 2023. Most importantly, it’s proof pop doesn’t need to be a dirty word.
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