Prioritise Pleasure
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''Prioritise Pleasure'' is the second
studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track cartridge, 8-track or Cassette tape, cassette), or digital distribution, dig ...
by the British musician
Self Esteem Self-esteem is confidence in one's own worth, abilities, or morals. Self-esteem encompasses beliefs about oneself (for example, "I am loved", "I am worthy") as well as emotional states, such as triumph, despair, pride, and shame. Smith and Macki ...
, aka Rebecca Lucy Taylor, released on 22 October 2021. Most of the album was written before the
COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...
but its recording was delayed by the subsequent lockdowns. The album was promoted by several singles, including the lead single, "I Do This All the Time". It received acclaim from critics, with several listing it as one of the best albums of 2021, and achieving a nomination for the 2022
Mercury Prize The Mercury Prize, formerly called the Mercury Music Prize, is an annual Music award, music prize awarded for the best album released by a musical act from the Music of the United Kingdom, United Kingdom or Music of Ireland, Ireland. It was cre ...
. The album charted at number 11 on the
UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is the United Kingdom's industry-recognised national record chart for album, albums. Entries are ranked by sales and audio streaming. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the O ...
and as of April 2025 has sold 46,178 copies in the UK, according to the
Official Charts Company The Official UK Charts Company Limited (formerly Music Industry Chart Services Limited), trading as the Official Charts Company (OCC) or the Official Charts (formerly the Chart Information Network), is a British inter-professional organisation ...
. In April 2021, Taylor released "I Do This All The Time", the first single from her second album as Self Esteem. In July, she released the title track and announced that the record, ''Prioritise Pleasure'', would coincide with a UK tour in October of the same year. In August, Self Esteem released the third single, "How Can I Help You". In October, Self Esteem released "You Forever", the final single preceding the album which was released on 22 October 2021.


Writing and recording

Taylor recorded one of the tracks, "How Can I Help You" in 2019, before the 2020 coronavirus pandemic lockdown. She has said that much of the rest of the album was written by early 2020 with rough demos waiting to be turned into full recordings, but due to the pandemic restrictions she "had to just sit and think about it longer than usual". Of the lead single "I Do This All The Time", which is largely spoken word, Taylor has said "I went into this studio in Sheffield just to experiment, and I ended up building the backing track up, and just reading out my iPhone notes in a row". Before releasing the track, she said in an interview "I’m dabbling in spoken word on the next album. I’ve got a song called 'Sometimes I Think That’s The Problem' and it’s meant to be my version of “Sunscreen”, the Baz Luhrmann song...I’m gunning for that to be the opening track on the next album". Despite its subsequent success, she has said that the track nearly didn't make it on to the album. ''Prioritise Pleasure'' was co-written, recorded and produced with Johan Hugo Karlberg, who Taylor also worked with on '' Compliments Please''. She has said that they had to make the album on a small budget, but that their experience of working together on the first album made it easier to make a big sound with limited resources.


Lyrics and music

"I'm Fine", with its line "Do you understand the pain you cause / When you see a body just for sport?" deals with the experience of sexual assault. At the end of the track is a voice recording of young women discussing strategies for staying safe on the streets, a recording made by Taylor at a National Youth Theatre drama school that she worked on. The women on the recording speak about barking at groups of men as a form of self-protection; at Self Esteem live shows audience members bark and howl in homage to this line. The title track "Prioritise Pleasure" explores the theme of valuing self worth and self love in the face of social expectations, pressures and fears faced by women. In the face of prima facie criticisms of the phrase being self-centred, Taylor has emphasised that the track highlights the importance of not being driven by the need to please others, and "that not being indulgent and that not being selfish". "I Do This All The Time" is a largely spoken-word track that contains a combination of critical self-talk ("Old habits die for a couple of weeks / and then I start doing them again"), pieces of advice ("Stop trying to have so many friends") and verbatim critical, sexist comments made to Taylor. One of the lines references sexist comments from a Slow Club tour manager who told her to put her dress on and stop complaining and said: "You’d be working in McDonald’s if you weren’t doing this". Of the abrupt ending used in this and other tracks on the album, she has described it as a "mid-paragraph idea" and that "it’s important to also acknowledge the fact that the happy-ever-after doesn’t exist, because it can just stop at any time. The abrupt end can encourage you to live in the moment more, while it’s actually happening, since life doesn’t fade out nicely." "Moody" is reference to Taylor growing up being called "mardy" (a northern English term for "moody") and refusing the expectation to always be happy go lucky. "How Can I Help You" deals with the objectification of women, but was also inspired by the pain that Taylor felt of producing a record – ''Compliments Please'' – that she was intensely proud of yet gained limited commercial or critical success. "You Forever" reflects on the courage needed to do something alone, or to do something different, including in her launch of the Self Esteem project.


Release and reception

''Prioritise Pleasure'' received widespread acclaim from
music critics Music journalism (or music criticism) is media criticism and reporting about music topics, including popular music, classical music, and traditional music. Journalists began writing about music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on ...
. At
Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...
, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has an average score of 92, based on 12 critical reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". In a five-star review, ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'' reviewer Laura Snapes described the album as "remarkable" and "a rare ''big'' pop album after 18 months of comparatively diminutive offerings from headline female pop acts". El Hunt in ''
NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming and culture website, bimonthly magazine, and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a "Rock music, rock inkie", the ''NME'' would be ...
'' called it "assured and unapologetic" and "charged with a dark, smirking wit that's impossible to turn away from". Jessie Atkinson of ''
Gigwise ''Gigwise'' is a British online music news site featuring music news, photos, album reviews, music festivals, concert tickets and video content. Founded in June 2001, the site is based in London, England. History Gigwise was launched in 2001 in ...
'' concluded that ''Prioritise Pleasure'' "represents Rebecca Taylor reaching her well-deserved pinnacle, as a modern popstar with the whole package: voice, humour, choreography, honesty, looks and the uncanny ability to pen a banger".


Accolades

''The Guardian'', ''
The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British Sunday newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of N ...
'', the '' i'' and ''Gigwise'' ranked ''Prioritise Pleasure'' as the best album of 2021. ''NME'' and ''
The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
'' ranked the album as the fourth best of 2021. ''The Guardian'' named "I Do This All the Time" as the best song of 2021. A
BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...
"poll of polls" that combined the results of 30 critics' end-of-year lists placed ''Prioritise Pleasure'' at number seven for 2021. A Metacritic collection of 182 year-end top ten lists by music publications placed the album at number 12 for the year. The album was nominated for the 2022 Mercury Prize, the winner of which was ''Sometimes I Might Be Introvert'' by
Little Simz Simbiatu "Simbi" Abisola Abiola Ajikawo (born 23 February 1994), better known by her stage name Little Simz, is a British Rapping, rapper and Acting, actress. She rose to prominence with the independent release of her first three albums: ''A Cur ...
.


Use in media

The song "Still Reigning" was used in the trailer for the 2024
Nora Fingscheidt Nora Fingscheidt ( ) is a German director and screenwriter. She has been a participant of the film festival since 2011 for her short films, winning the prize in 2017 for ''Without This World'' (''Ohne diese Welt''). She became widely known for ...
film ''The Outrun''.


Track listing


Personnel

Musicians * Rebecca Lucy Taylor – lead vocals, synths, string arrangements * Oluwaseye Adelekan – bass, backing vocals * Sophie Galpin – strings, piano * Raven Bush, Francesca Ter-Berg – strings * Jacob Vetter – keys * Choir – Jacob Vetter, Marged Sion, Kelli Blanchett, Seraphina Simone, Sophie Galpin, Rebecca Lucy Taylor, Levi Heaton * Johan Hugo Karlberg – programming * Colin Elliot – additional string programming on "Still Reigning", "Prioritise Pleasure", "I Do This All The Time", "The 345" Production * Johan Hugo Karlberg – production, recording, engineering, mixing * Mark Tieku – additional production on "Hobbies 2" * David Glover – additional production on "I Do This All The Time" * Cat Harrison – additional engineering on "John Elton" Artwork * Olivia Richardson – cover photo * Felix Neill – artwork


Charts


References

{{reflist 2021 albums Self Esteem (musician) albums Fiction Records albums