“Hold on, I don't understand / Where all the roads are going, man,” MØ sings during Meat on a Stick, the mission-statement opener from the genre-defying ‘Plæygirl’. A decade on from her breakout, the Danish pop icon is at her most introspective on her fourth LP, with its immediate drop into an atmospheric a capella intro and sparse instrumentation placing her meditative lyrics front and centre.
The unnerving hums and echoed vocal harmonies crescendo, then cease, as the propulsive Who Said erupts, revealing a signature Scandi-pop banger that is closer to the MØ listeners have come to know and love. An obvious choice for lead single, it’s an infectious earworm guaranteed to get under your skin.
As a whole, though, ‘Plæygirl’ finds MØ at a crossroads in her career, one where she is free to throw away the rulebook and experiment more than ever before.
She might have recently revisited her debut album ‘No Mythologies to Follow’ for a 10 year anniversary tour, but she’s not content to rest on her laurels.
A feature from the genre-mashing Irish vocalist Biig Piig lights up the audacious stomper Sweet, while indie-sleaze revivalist The Dare joins regular collaborator Nick Sylvester in producing Keep Moving, a high-octane electroclash number that harks back to the early noughties.
But the addition of Wake Me Up, an Avicii cover, as the closer is a misstep, disrupting the album’s focus and flow right at the last. Despite MØ’s fondness for a kaleidoscopic beat and knack for crafting songs primed for the dancefloor, her writing generally juxtaposes this euphoria with melancholic imagery, mirrored in her pained vocals.
On the more subdued Without You, for example, she expresses her fears of losing herself to codependency: “I don’t know if I know who I am without you.” She’ll get her spark back later, though, on the ode to self-empowerment Lose Yourself. Broadly, ‘Plæygirl’ strikes a balance between intimate sad-girl pop and buoyant electro anthems — it’s timely and refreshing, if a couple of steps off MØ’s best work.
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