Why I love Prioritise Pleasure so much whether we care or not

The love you need is gentle, The love you need is kind. I figured that out after all this alone time.

I begin writing this the night I’m seeing Rina Sawayama, my first gig in over two years, and my top album of 2020. SAWAYAMA, on top of just being an impeccable pop record, truly captured the spirit of my 2020: The euphoric pop beats kept me energised, the thrashing metal vented my frustrations, Bad Friend and Chosen Family comforted me in the darkest days of social isolation and alienation. I made the fairly last minute swerve to choose this album to cover this year when I realised it’s telling the same story for my 2021: It’s tired, it’s wanting more, and it’s sick of your shit.

The record opens with the moody, gothic “I’m fine” and sets out a clear mission statement. The haunting wail of a melody sounds straight out of a mournful war documentary, while the harsh beat and blunt lyrics evoke the sense of someone who is not having it. And I’d be remiss to not mention the bonkers and delightful barking. It’s challenging and arguably inaccessible as an opener, but promises an insightful and provocative listen ahead.

I… ugh. Can I start over?

I keep trying to write this review. Go through the tracks, point out what an infectious bop “Fucking Wizardry” is, that “You Forever” is the best pop song of the year that you didn’t hear. Which is true! But every time I keep falling short. Speaking with others, people either get this album or they don’t. And I think I know why. To properly explain why I think this has resonated so strongly I’m going to have to explain why it has meant so much to me personally. So strap in.

Lockdown for me was pretty painless. Socialising was, if anything, easier with the loss of distance barriers. Work was fortunately not significantly affected, and I’ve really grown as a result of working directly on Covid. It gave me the space to consolidate myself, and realise I am actually the shit. So when we started to come out over the spring and summer, I was really interested to see who people prioritised, who they were hanging with, and what they were doing. And when someone attempted to mug me and many of them didn’t even ask if I was okay, I came to a very quick conclusion: I deserve better friends.

Since then, I’ve taken a bit of a step back. I’ve stopped trying to have so many friends and now everything I see feels so exhausting. I look at my socials and people doing way too much. Stop showing off, not everything needs your threaded hot take, regularly getting so wasted you can’t stand isn’t iconic, you’re not ‘baby’ you’re a fucking mess. It’s been triggering almost seeing some of the old habits, but at once an affirming reminder of what I’m moving past.

So yeah. A fraught and messy but defiant album loudly declaring self-acceptance, while also embracing trauma, and the tension between growing in one sense while, possibly, facing shortcomings and self-sabotage at the same time. We’ve got vibrant pop songs, gleefully spelling out M-O-O-D-Y like a deranged cheerleader — owning being a ‘moody cow’ (her words, not mine). Not unreminiscent of Olivia Rodrigo’s good 4 u. An ebullient admission of her flaws, that her “hunger times my impatience makes me feel reckless”. The general clash of the bombastic, sprawling production and delivery with the visceral, intimate, and confrontational lyrics. It just jives with my feeling of yearning millennial exhaustion. My frenetic, contradictory need to say I don’t CARE.

The album’s peak is I Do This All The Time. Stripping away the energy, it serves straight up, spoken word fraught emotion. She despairs over her mistakes, of sending those long paragraph texts, stop it, don’t. Delicately building herself back up from fracturing misogyny and troubled relationships. The imagery of her hugging herself, while on the nose, feels appropriate. It culminates in the devastating “It was really rather miserable trying to love you” and when the cascading string crescendo swoops in, it feels like a heartfelt embrace. It leads elegantly into the anthemic Still Reigning, a sermon-like chorus preaching love and affirmation.

I’ve been recommending this record to everyone, and people have either loved it or bounced off completely. It’s undeniably a very competent body of work but I can understand why it wouldn’t land for some people. It snarls at you like a wounded animal, throwing out barks, off-putting rhythms, and, at times, some wild and unconventional vocals. My relationship to it is definitely a personal one. Getting near to me IS some fucking wizardry. I DO NOT need any more friends. And you know what? I figured that out after all this alonе time.

Album of the year. That’s decisive, do you like that?