As fans of her Table Manners podcast will know, Ware has developed a real confidence and embraced her sense of fun since the Sade-nodding, soul sadgirl days of her Mercury-nominated 2012 debut, Devotion. Now a mother of three, accustomed to seating A-list guests (including Paul McCartney, Cher, Reese Witherspoon, Margot Robbie, Louis Theroux, Kylie Minogue and Yotam Ottolenghi) around her podcaster\u2019s dinner table to share her mother\u2019s home cooking, the former journalist and backing singer is strutting into her diva era.<\/p>\n
\u201cI trust myself more,\u201d she told The Talks earlier this year. She looked back fondly on the making of Devotion, when she needed producer David Okumu to \u201cnurture\u201d her. Now she prefers to share a studio with those who \u201cchallenge\u201d her and has worked with a range of diva-approved producers on Superbloom, including Stuart Price (Madonna, Dua Lipa), John Shave (Charli XCX, Britney Spears) and TommyD (Beyonc\u00e9, Kylie, Adele). The consequence is a playful record that pushes in different directions without straying too far from the Seventies dancefloor brief.<\/p>\n
Ware \u2013 who had a custom whip made for her last tour \u2013 used to be squeamish about putting too much sex in the songs. But now she sinks into all the gasping, moaning vocal cosplay of vintage disco. The easy-going (if not wildly inventive) opener \u201cI Could Get Used To This\u201d sees her promising \u201cpleasure\u2019s just around the corner\u201d over a terrifically plucked fluid bass. <\/p>\n
![\"Jessie](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Jessie-Ware-Album-Artwork.jpeg\")
Jessie Ware\u2019s \u2018Superbloom\u2019 (Island EMI Records)<\/p>\n
There\u2019s more come-hithering on \u201cSauna\u201d, with its bubble-sizzle synth pulse, steamy exhalations and Daft Punk meets Weather Girls chorus: \u201cI don\u2019t need faster I need stronger\u201d. Trad masc guys are in demand here, with \u201cSauna\u201d\u2019s call for an old school wood chopper of a guy matched by \u201cRide\u201d\u2019s manifestation of \u201ca cowboy\u2026 a stallion who can go all night\u201d. Over handclaps and a sparkly, pitched up sample of the hook from Ennio Morricone\u2019s theme from the 1966 Spaghetti Western The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Ware purrs out her yearning for \u201csomeone who can blow\u2026 my mind\u201d before taking control of the dancefloor with a cry of \u201cGiddyup! Giddyup!\u201d <\/p>\n
She hits Shirley Bassey belter mode on \u201cMr Valentine\u201d, accessorised with Prince-esque flicks of funk guitar and melodic echoes of Irene Cara\u2019s 1980 theme from \u201cFame\u201d. The rich melodrama and swirling strings get turned up to an imperial 11 on \u201cDon\u2019t Know Who I Am?\u201d (Answer: \u201cI\u2019m the love of your life\u201d.) Ware\u2019s singing is so fluent and flexible she doesn\u2019t need to faff with runs or noodling, and there\u2019s something very soothing in her ability to see the notes cleanly through to their ends.<\/p>\n
Like the Pet Shop Boys, Ware is great at bringing the Big Emoting with an edge of wry Britishness. Unlike them, she doesn\u2019t bring much new to the party. At times she sails close to pastiche. For better and for worse, there\u2019s little about this record to suggest it was made in 2026. There\u2019s not a lyric that couldn\u2019t have been convincingly written in 1979. As Ware\u2019s voice floats up to stratospheric high notes on the title track over the ecstatic \u201cooo\u201ds and \u201cwahh!\u201ds of backing singers, you do wonder if you\u2019re listening to a karaoke version of a lost Minnie Riperton cut. But if that\u2019s the worst I can find to say, then Ware\u2019s clearly acing it. We could probably all use a break from 2026 anyway. DJs should all be rushing out for vinyl copies of the best 1970s album of the 2020s to drop onto their decks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":535562,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,128,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-535561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535561","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=535561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}