Marie Davidson pours out her soul
While Marie Davidson’s albums have always been personal, Working Class Woman leaves a different feeling. She said that it is “an album where I have started to work with my psyche, trying to access a level of my consciousness that I was not aware of before.”
And indeed, it reads as her most personal and diverse album to date.
The album begins on what could first appear as its conclusion. Marie Davidson aligns, one after the other, remarks and questions that could be (and probably are) made by her fans. On a reasonably chaotic background she asks “so, frankly, is this album about taking risks?” and between lines that insist on the lack of humanity that some fans might have towards her, she repeats to herself “Who are you?”. This seems to be what this album is about. It does involve taking risks but it is mostly a self reflective album where Marie takes us on a subconscious poppy dream.
Through the diverse track listing she alternates between more fun and funky sounds like in ‘So Right’ (the type of song that you dance to at a house party and to which you don’t pay much attention), and chaotic tracks where the lyrics barely make any sense anymore, and screechy electronic samples that make you want to curl up in ball like in ‘The Tunnel’. This track features French and English in what appears to be disarticulated self reflections where she talks about ‘The Tunnel’, a distressing dark environment in which she needs to dig by herself to come out stronger. The power of this track lies in the strength of the lyrics that suddenly make sense again when she seems to gain back lucidity and says in French (translated) “I hadn’t understood that I can’t love if I don’t love myself / love is not a reward you get after having suffered / love is a gift”. This spills out in between chaotic sentences that don’t quite make sense (although her lyrics are so pictorial, one still needs to build their own interpretation) and these words stand out crystal clear and strike as a punch in the stomach.
But don’t let me give you the wrong impression, both the strength and weakness of Working Class Woman is the mix of tracks that can be as fun as ‘Work it’ (a weird poppy song where she acclaims hard work and self love in a funny and frankly quite sexy fashion) and as deep as ‘The Tunnel’ or ‘The Psychologist’ (of which the topic remains left to interpretation). This makes a diverse record which does not feel especially heavy but is indeed a bit of an emotional rollercoaster. Marie Davidson offers us forty-three minutes in her head where we get to witness everything from uplifted and carefree to darker feelings. What she means isn’t always obvious but this freedom of interpretation is part of the game. And when she wants us to know something, she makes sure to say it straight.
-4 stars
