{"id":534136,"date":"2026-04-16T13:17:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T13:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/534136\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T13:17:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T13:17:10","slug":"jessie-ware-superbloom-review-table-manners-host-dishes-up-more-disco-but-where-are-the-bangers-jessie-ware","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/534136\/","title":{"rendered":"Jessie Ware: Superbloom review \u2013 Table Manners host dishes up more disco \u2013 but where are the bangers? | Jessie Ware"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recent episodes of Table Manners, the podcast Jessie Ware<\/a> co-hosts with her mother, Lennie, have begun with a brief advert for Ware\u2019s new album: listeners, it advises, can get 10% off by preordering Superbloom using a special code. The fact that the advert is directing traffic from Ware\u2019s podcast to her music feels slightly telling. As side hustles go, Table Manners has proved extraordinarily successful, attracting A-list guests: Margot Robbie, Jeremy Allen White, Paul McCartney, Robert De Niro. Indeed, it\u2019s proved so successful that it scarcely seems like a side hustle at all: in 2026, Ware is probably better known as a podcaster than a singer. Hats off to her: in an uncertain era, when rock and pop artists are well advised to have a backup plan, there\u2019s something hugely impressive about how big Ware\u2019s has become. Still, there lurks the danger of her music seeming an afterthought: like the 10% off ad, something to get out of the way before the more serious business of enjoying banana bread with Lisa Kudrow.<\/p>\n

The artwork for Superbloom. Photograph: Publicity image<\/p>\n

You can hear the impact of Table Manners on Superbloom in a literal sense: a track called Automatic features a deep-voiced spoken-word appearance from Euphoria star Colman Domingo, previously a guest on the podcast. It\u2019s also an album marked by a sense of doubling down. Ware\u2019s third album in a row to mine a disco-pop hybrid, it\u2019s also the most straightforwardly retro of the trio, sanding away the sheen of futuristic electronica found on 2020\u2019s What\u2019s Your Pleasure?<\/a> and 2023\u2019s That! Feels Good!<\/a> in favour of lush orchestration: even the most synth-heavy tracks here speak less of the present than they do the early 80s post-disco boogie genre.<\/p>\n

It also significantly amps up both its predecessors\u2019 USP, combining camp with grownup pop. \u201cI\u2019m a lover, a freak and a mother,\u201d she sang on 2023\u2019s Pearls; here, you get to hear her three children on the ballad 16 Summers, its lyrical theme not a million miles away from Abba\u2019s Slipping Through My Fingers. If Pearls has the hint of a show tune about it, Don\u2019t You Know Who I Am? goes full Shirley Bassey, albeit accompanied by a four-to-the-floor beat. \u201cI need a wood-chopping guy giving love,\u201d she sings on a track called Sauna: the fact that it\u2019s preceded by a wildly melodramatic instrumental intro called Chariots of Love might be entirely coincidental, rather than a knowing reference to Chariots, once the UK\u2019s largest gay sauna, but you wouldn\u2019t put money on it. Debuted in 2024 onstage at Glastonbury\u2019s legendary queer club NYC Downlow, Ride marries \u201ccome be my cowboy\u201d lyrics to the sound of a whip cracking and a sample of the whistle from Ennio Morricone\u2019s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly theme. Anyone without an extremely high threshold for the intentionally tacky may consider galloping off into the sunset long before it ends.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Jessie Ware: Automatic \u2013 video<\/p>\n

But if Superbloom feels less a development than a retrenchment \u2013 the work of an artist who now knows exactly who her audience are and is more than happy to cater for them \u2013 that shouldn\u2019t stand as a judgment on its quality. Grownup, disco-infused pop is a crowded market, but Ware has consistently distinguished herself by the classiness of what she does, and the sense that she has great taste, truly loves and understands her source material and surrounds herself with likeminded collaborators. That\u2019s as evident as ever on Superbloom, an album that, for all its kitschy moments, is very well written and well made. It lacks a banger quite as undeniable as its predecessor\u2019s Free Yourself \u2013 a song that, in a sane world, would have been No 1 for months \u2013 but it definitely doesn\u2019t want for great melodies or choruses. The string arrangements scrupulously avoid glitterball cliches: instead, they are delightfully haunted by the ghost of Chicago\u2019s psychedelic soul maestro Charles Stepney, his opulent influence particularly apparent on the title track and No Consequences. The thrillingly spare sound and rattling percussion of Mr Valentine evokes another post-disco development, the Paradise Garage-approved punk funk of Liquid Liquid and ESG. Like the impassioned ferocity of Ware\u2019s vocals \u2013 she sounds as if she means it, even on a song as daft as Ride \u2013 it\u2019s a world away from the tacky 70s night signifiers of the less artful practitioners in her field.<\/p>\n

Clearly Superbloom can\u2019t deliver the jolt of What\u2019s Your Pleasure?, an album that represented a distinct pivot away from Ware\u2019s earlier pursuit of standard mainstream pop success (production from Benny Blanco, co-writes with Ed Sheeran) and her finding a lane that suited her perfectly. If Superbloom is the sound of her staying in that lane, it\u2019s at least one that she dominates comfortably. And if pop were to lose her entirely to the world of podcasting, it would be a pity.<\/p>\n

This week Alexis listened to<\/p>\n

Paul Weller \u2013 What Was I Made For?
From the compilation Weller at the BBC Vol 2, the deeply improbable and surprisingly moving sound of the 67-year-old\u2019s heartfelt take on Billie Eilish\u2019s contribution to the Barbie soundtrack, in the process transforming it into a meditation on ageing and loss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Recent episodes of Table Manners, the podcast Jessie Ware co-hosts with her mother, Lennie, have begun with a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-534136","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}