{"id":384763,"date":"2026-04-10T09:22:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T09:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/384763\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T09:22:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T09:22:08","slug":"holly-humberstone-cruel-world-review-taylor-swift-fave-trades-gothic-melancholy-for-pop-glow-up-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/384763\/","title":{"rendered":"Holly Humberstone: Cruel World review \u2013 Taylor Swift fave trades gothic melancholy for pop glow-up | Music"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a profession, pop stardom has been in existential crisis for some time. It used to be simple \u2013 a hit single was the only real qualification \u2013 but in a post-monocultural world, the job title is often bestowed as a result of more piecemeal success: a Brit rising star award and Taylor Swift<\/a> support slot here, 4m monthly Spotify listeners and a Top 5 album there.<\/p>\n

Cruel World album artwork.<\/p>\n

This, specifically, is the CV of Lincolnshire\u2019s Holly Humberstone<\/a>, who has established herself in the pop sphere without ever troubling the singles chart. While an undeniable banger has eluded the 26-year-old, her sound is faultlessly chart-friendly. Like Swift, Humberstone delivers earnestly wordy lyrics in intimate, near-ASMR tones atop 80s synth-pop decorated with a deluge of hooks. For this second album, she has dropped the hint of gothic melancholy that accompanied her debut, Paint My Bedroom Black. Cruel World is peppy bordering on euphoric: inordinately sunny break-up song To Love Somebody is powered by a stadium-ready pre-chorus, while the brilliantly catchy White Noise plugs into nostalgically naff disco to channel imperial-phase Kylie.<\/p>\n

Despite the odd cringeworthy line \u2013 \u201cI\u2019m gonna shake my nonexistent ass to this shitty song,\u201d she warns on Drunk Dialling \u2013 the production is generally knowing and cool (especially the happy hardcore breakdown that concludes Make It All Better). Combined with her industrious approach to crowd-pleasing melodies, it\u2019s hard to think of a reason why Humberstone shouldn\u2019t have a long career as a pop star \u2013 perhaps even in the old sense as well as the new.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As a profession, pop stardom has been in existential crisis for some time. It used to be simple…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":384764,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[146,85,46,409],"class_list":{"0":"post-384763","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}