{"id":391594,"date":"2026-04-22T05:18:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T05:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/391594\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T05:18:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T05:18:08","slug":"justine-skye-candy-album-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/391594\/","title":{"rendered":"Justine Skye: CANDY Album Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI\u2019m just a girl in the crowd,\u201d sings R&B singer Justine Skye<\/a> on \u201cJust a Girl,\u201d the banging opener of her dance-forward, house-fueled new album, CANDY: \u201cPut the spotlight on me now.\u201d That might seem like a predictable, raise-your-hands-to-the-ceiling dancefloor lyric, but it also serves as a lens on Skye\u2019s career so far. Having blown up on Tumblr as a teenager in the 2010s, she got signed to Atlantic Records at 19 and scored a hit, \u201cCollide,\u201d with Tyga<\/a> in 2014. Since then, she\u2019s released music on Roc Nation, Republic, and as an independent artist; co-starred on the TV show Grown-ish; and, finally, signed a new deal with Warner Brothers. The industry tried to turn Skye into a pop star multiple times, but none of it really stuck. Her last album, 2021\u2019s Space & Time<\/a>, was executive-produced by Timbaland<\/a>\u2014not that anyone would have noticed, since whatever Skye brought to the table in charisma and would-be star power was met with generic R&B stylings and lethargic beats that paled in comparison to the legendary producer\u2019s heyday. By her own account, Skye was aware she was being sold short: \u201cI started to brainwash and manipulate myself into being like, \u2018Okay, I do relate to this song,\u2019\u201d she said<\/a> recently. \u201cI had no relation to any of the songs that I was singing in the past.\u201d Groomed as a star, she\u2019d ended up instead as an anonymous face in a crowded field.<\/p>\n

CANDY, then, is Skye\u2019s spotlight: a prismatic blast of color pointed directly at her. You can feel Skye\u2019s relief at ditching her old persona, and while \u201cgirls just want to have fun\u201d isn\u2019t necessarily a novel take for a pivot to dance music, the hedonistic joy and theatrical fantasy at the core of CANDY are infectious. A song like \u201cBitch in Ibiza\u201d could have sounded trite, but Skye sidesteps club-tourist clich\u00e9 thanks to bouncy bass and an irresistibly laid-back flow. Rap-singing over a sexy, sweaty house beat, Skye weaves a tale of clubland abandon\u2014\u201cjust another bitch in Ibiza,\u201d \u201cblacked out, off the Lime-a-Rita,\u201d stumbling down the beach in heels and savoring every blurry second of it. It\u2019s campy and a touch ridiculous, but in a way that throws caution to the wind, like downing that last shot you know is going to rocket you through the rest of the night..<\/p>\n

No score yet, be the first to add.<\/p>\n

\u201cPop It\u201d is equally effervescent. The chorus\u2019 sing-song effect, where Skye repeatedly instructs her man to \u201cpop it open\u201d\u2014his wallet, her thighs, bottles, whatever\u2014might be the album\u2019s catchiest moment, even before the track explodes into sleek tropical synth stabs and thumping bass. Skye has done her due diligence when it comes to making a dance record: \u201cOh Lala\u201d is one of several production credits from Kaytranada<\/a>, and there are few artists better qualified to shepherd a young R&B vocalist into the ranks of dancefloor diva-dom. The percussion does a lot of the heavy lifting, as Skye\u2019s lofty falsetto is paired with slinky tambourines and a pounding kick drum. The song\u2019s almost animalistic sensuality is miles away from the safe choices Skye has made\u2014or been asked to make\u2014until now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI\u2019m just a girl in the crowd,\u201d sings R&B singer Justine Skye on \u201cJust a Girl,\u201d the banging…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":391595,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[4958,156,157,111,139,69,1251],"class_list":{"0":"post-391594","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-albums","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-new-zealand","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-web"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}