Despite being a relatively new, London-based artist, Hope Tala has quickly garnered acclaim in the United States in publications like Rolling Stone and Vogue. Her new album, “Girl Eats Sun” (2020), continues to show her potential, not only through features with artists like sky and Aminé but also through her unique fusion of bossa nova and R&B influences. At times, the album struggles to develop depth and originality beyond her few previous works. Nevertheless, her music immerses you wonderfully in a sun-soaked daze of summer love.
From the beginning, Tala has explored combinations of Brazilianbossa nova, jazz, soul and indie music. This style clearly carries through to her new album, with sensual guitar chords and playful flute notes forming the backbone for the opening tracks “Mullholland” and “Cherries.”Tala occasionally edges on resembling the overused style of Billie Eilish with her gentle, whisper-like voice in “Drugstore” and “All My Girls Like To Fight.” Thankfully, hints of her more complex influences still make these songs distinct. Spanish guitar chords prevent “All My Girls Like To Fight” from being like Eilish’s “all the good girls go to hell” (2019), and soulful piano balances out the pop-style chorus of “Crazy.” The overall bolder songs in the beginning of the album also set the tone with Tala’s unique style, so that listeners are more attuned to pick up on its elements by the time they reach subtler tracks. However, the downside is that even with only six songs on the extended play (EP), they all start to sound too much like each other by the time listeners reach the end of the album.
In terms of subject, Tala mostly writes about love and breakups. She frequently uses motifs of fruit ripeness, the body and sunlight which span from single songs like “Cherries” to the title of the EP itself. While beautiful, her metaphor-rich lyrics sometimes sound like a slam poetry writer presenting flowery metaphors as overly profound. This is particularly true in this album, where her attempts to comment on female power in relationships come off as less nuanced than in previous songs. For example, her earlier song “Eden” (2018)explores patriarchy and unequal power dynamics, even in her own same-gender relationship, through the biblical story of Adam and Eve. Another previous song, “Lovestained” (2019), looked at both the positive and damaging effects of love with interesting implications for expectations of female purity. By contrast, “All My Girls Like To Fight”defies traditional gender roles by presenting women as aggressive and unapologetic, an undeniably important message but comparatively obvious.
This is surprising considering Tala’s love of analyzing traditional English texts and modern music alike. Talareceived a degree in English literature from the University of Bristol and turned down the opportunity to get her master’s at the University of Cambridge to focus on music.She even wrote her dissertation on Kendrick Lamar’s “To Pimp a Butterfly” (2015), and in aVICE article she admired his complicated political messages.
However, she commented that she doesn’t see herself as equally capable of writing music about politics. It’s perfectly understandable if she prefers to write about other topics, but the fact that her new EP continues the same musical and content-related themes without adding anything new makes it seem like she is not stretching herself to evolve. Clearly, she has much room to grow if she hopes to achieve her ambitious goals, reported byRefinery29, to “win a Grammy [and] be a professor.”
That said, her career is still relatively young and she is off to a strong start. We can still appreciate the pleasant simplicity of “Girl Eats Sun” while we wait to see what Tala does next. In fact, aDork articlequotes her saying that the lightheartedness of the love song “Crazy” is intentional; with such serious matters like COVID-19 threatening the world right now, Tala knows that listeners hardly need anything more serious weighing on their minds. As we anticipate both Tala’s next release and the end of the pandemic, “Girl Eats Sun” is well worth a listen, even if just for the romantic daydream of a post-COVID-19, care-free summer day on the beach that it provides.
