If there were ever a pop artist who could be described as the antithesis of subtle it would be Swedish singer-songwriter Tove Lo. Her unapologetically sexual subject matter, blunt lyricism and bass-heavy electronic production come together to form songs as subtle as a brick to the face. From the name of her latest album “Lady Wood,” one could probably assume it is the most hamfisted and distasteful pop project of 2016.
To call the production on “Lady Wood” bland would be a disservice to just how truly uninteresting and uninspired Tove Lo’s beats are. The beat production on “Lady Wood” is the boiled chicken of electronic house music: It’s simple and devoid of any kind of taste or flavor. Each track features an array of oversaturated bass lines, generic pulsing synths and awful finger snap samples with the complexity of a Casio Keyboard sample track.
Tove Lo’s singing on “Lady Wood” is practically indistinguishable from the vocals of any other dance pop or house singer, receiving a heavy-handed treatment of Auto-Tune and pitch equalization which removes any individuality the singer could bring to a track. No single track stands out as interesting or unique, with the entire album blending into a mess, desperately trying to cash in on the moody, ambient sound popular in club and rave scenes today.
As if the utter mess of the production weren’t bad enough, Tove Lo’s lyrics and song concepts on the album are absolute abominations of misused sexuality. On “Cool Girl,” Tove Lo speaks about how she tries to portray herself as sexually promiscuous and devoid of feeling while deep down harboring feelings for one of her partners. What should be an interesting and thoughtful concept is completely neutered by Tove Lo’s incredibly basic lyrics, such as “We don't put a label on it / So we can run free, yeah / I wanna be free like you.” This line and others rarely move beyond the reading level of a fourth grader. Many other songs don’t even put forth an interesting concept but instead rely entirely on crass sexuality. On the album’s title track for example, Tove Lo states without a hint of irony or self awareness that she is “dirty on the inside, damaged goods … Yeah, you give me wood / Give me lady wood.” This song tries to sound sexually edgy, but instead is cringe-inducing in its entirety.
There is nothing wrong with an artist writing music about sex so long as it serves an artistic purpose. On “Lady Wood,” however, Tove Lo’s attempts at playing up her persona of sexual promiscuity don’t come off as artistically bold or interesting. Rather, they’re nothing more than superficial cash grabs aimed at differentiating Tove Lo from her fellow pop musicians, seeing as her horribly-produced music isn’t exciting. “Lady Wood” commodifies sex, using it as a tool for commercial success, rather than a lens for deeper artistic exploration.
“Lady Wood” has almost no redeeming factors in the slightest. The uninspired production neither takes the risks to be experimentally interesting nor finely tunes its pop sound to stand out within its genre. The vocals are overproduced, delivered without passion and would fade away into the song’s beats were it not for their crass and ridiculous lyrics. The bland pop sound of Tove Lo’s “Lady Wood” and its two-dimensional sex appeal make it one of the worst pop albums of 2016.
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