As a follow-up to the widely acclaimed “What’s Your Pleasure?”, the UK artist drops another Album of the Year contender.

If you hadn’t heard a single thing from Jessie Ware since her biggest song, 2014’s “Say You Love Me”, and you were to hear her now, no one could blame you if you thought they were two completely different artists. Ware has gone through a transformation of sorts in the past decade; from musically to welcoming her first child into the world. Sonically, this metamorphosis largely started with her 2020 record “What’s Your Pleasure?”, which was met with critical and commercial success. At the time, Ware felt like an artist finally reaching her true potential. Which is why it’s even more impressive that the follow-up may be even better.

“I think I finally know the artist I’m meant to be now,” Ware proclaimed on a recent interview with NME. She sees herself now as more than just a “singer”, and has embraced every part of her artistic creativity. That really shines through on “That! Feels Good!”, as Ware blends many different sounds from disco-pop, to R&B, to house. The record picks up right where the previous one left off and doubles down on the jubilance, as Ware states in the same interview, “I knew the next record I wanted to make as soon as I finished [the single] ‘Remember Where You Are’. I was like, ‘Right, OK. This feels different to the rest of ‘What’s Your Pleasure?’, and this is the momentum that’s going to drive me forward’.“

TFG is full of joy, both from personal lived experiences and from observations of the lives of others. It’s a wildly fun record from start to finish, and elicits a range of emotions from the listener. It’s a triumph of modern pop music, and Ware is at her absolute best in her career vocally, reaching another level she had yet to display. It’s quite obvious from the opening track that she decided to have as much fun making this record as possible, soliciting the help on backing vocals from the likes of Kylie Minogue and Róisín Murphy. Listening to the record, shades of Diana Ross and Chaka Khan shine through. That’s especially apparent on album standouts “Pearls”, “Hello Love”, and “Beautiful People”. The record pays homage to pioneers of the genre without coming off as a tired rehash of things we’ve already heard before.

This quite easily is the best album of Ware’s career. It’s a culmination of Ware’s efforts to craft a record that could stand the test of time. It’s a celebration and a marvel. It might be way too early to call “That! Feels Good!” a classic record, but at the very least it should be seen as the new gold standard in an increasingly crowded genre.

Rating: 9.4/10

-Devyn Tammons