Credit: Jon Del Real
Rosie Tucker’s fourth album, ‘Utopia Now!’, finds the talented singer-songwriter asking what an artist’s life looks like in 2024 – a time where people’s (especially trans) rights are being taken away because they’re deemed ‘different’ and capitalism rules over (almost) all.
The album opener ‘Lightbulb’ is full of synths stabs and Rosie’s trademark stream-of-consciousness thoughts: ‘How many songwriters does it take to screw a tune?’ Blending wonky art pop with the sad soul of Sparklehorse (‘If I’m doing it right, I won’t feel a thing’), it perfectly complements the recent single ‘All My Exes Live in Vortexes’, a song in which Rosie tackles the whole concept of ‘industry’ and how it’s always us as consumers that have to make changes: ‘I hope no one had to piss in a bottle to get me the thing I ordered off the internet’.
This feeling of helplessness in a world that seems to put less and less emphasis on the importance of art and culture continues through ‘Gil Scott Albatross’, although the song does celebrate the kinship we can all find with like-minded people:‘What you give to me no one can sell. What you give to me I give right back’. When you’re talking about everything going on right now, of course the concept of AI will come up – and Rosie duly delivers on the twinkly emo of ‘Paperclip Maximiser’. They ponder how even using this tool to carry out the most mundane tasks – to satisfy shareholder needs – could be the start of a harrowing path: ‘Baby when you come to, you’ll find everything you love has been consumed’.
The album moves into slacker mode on ‘Big Fish No Fun’ – key line ‘The meta data proves you’re the real thing’ – before the angular ‘Suffer! Like You Mean It’ finds Rosie wishing bad luck on someone who’s crossed them: ‘Even on your best days, you blew it’. This is swiftly followed by ‘Unending Bliss’ – a form of self assessment and therapy that finds Rosie wanting ‘nothing but unending bliss for my enemies’ as they kill them with kindness. With its talk of celestial bodies and decaying love, ‘Obscura’ is the kind of romantic piece that only Rosie can write, while the title track has the same kind of immediate urgency as Guided by Voices: ‘Anything’s a poison in the right dose and everybody bites when you get close’.
The record comes to a close with ‘Eternal Life’, a cover of a Numero Group song that is introspective and melodic as Rosie emphasises the power and importance of love in an anthemic Broken Social Scene style: ‘Eternal life is the intersection of the line of time and the plane of now. We live forever’.
With quirky melodies and clever observations throughout, ‘Utopia Now!’ is an album that takes you on an unforgettable journey.
