A Complicated Woman

A Complicated Woman by Self Esteem is a decent pop album from 2025. It's not one of the best albums from that year, but it's no punishment to listen to it with nice songs with often original lyrics and a lot of variation in style.

Is that Kate McKinnon on the cover?! Uncanny resemblance. Anyway, I'm suspicious of anything offered here from the last 12 months but "I Do And I Don't Care" was an incredibly arresting start to what was an impressive album! So well-produced without degrading the emotion behind these songs. This feels intensely personal and has me quite taken. I can't wait to check out Self Esteem's earlier albums - definitely listening to Prioritise Pleasure next! What a terrific surprise!

As the nominee of this, I’ve been waiting for it to appear for a listen! The best album of 2025 deserves to be on this list, which is by its nature, biased against modern music. I can see some of the (presumably) men commenting are Very Angry that it has been nominated, which I’m sure RLT would enjoy. I nominated it as it is a phenomenal piece of work, presenting her arcing vocals with a mix of wit, anger, sass and vulnerability. And after listening to some absolute dross on both the main and bonus lists, I’m even more convinced this is worthy of inclusion.

Such a good album and nice stuff that was totally hidden from my perspective. Thank you to the picker.

I’m a massive fan of prioritised pleasure (which id give 5 stars), this the follow up just felt like a disappointment to me. Usually happens when you enjoy the first album you hear by an artist so much. I’d maybe have a different view if this came first.

Bri’ish

Such a great album — so many highlights. The opener hits hard straight out of the gate, setting the tone for the whole record. "Mother" is a standout, and really there are strong moments all the way through. An easy 5.

Rating: 7/10 Best songs: Focus is power, Mother, In plain sight

4 I like it

My knowledge of Self Esteem is limited to her appearance on Taskmaster. She's fun! This album is fun! Your milage will vary depending on how much you enjoy full choirs singing "fuck you". But I dig it. It's all very tongue in cheek; I mean, look at that album cover!

Pop, experimental pop. Me ha gustado. Un 4.

Un bastante buen disco de una gran voz femenina con variedad de estilos, variando entre el pop, en ocasiones algo más bailable y con variedad de instrumentación y de tonos y enfoques. Recomendable por ser distinto y porque cada canción merece la pena.

There's some good stuff in here - I just can't help but think it sounds a bit art poncy in places. If it had some of that trimmed, I'd enjoy it a lot more.

Very Pop oriented, but with some really fun lyrics. I enjoyed it more then I thought I would. I know I've seen a lot of comments about it's too soon to put on a list, but isn't that the point? Who knows if this album has staying power, but clearly the person who selected it thinks this album has a chance. Just my opinion. Either way, this album was light and bright with just enough sass and quirkiness to stand out among the sugary sweet bland music out there.

69 is the best club anthem I've ever heard. Such a fun album.

Liked it, would return.

Good album cover. Got a shock laugh out of me, but I also genuinely like it. Another great singer with clear, powerful lyrics. Pretty blunt message with the perfect amount of angst to come across as angry and inspiring instead of sad and whiny like you get with some angst-driven albums. I've said before that I think it's interesting when someone's accent comes out when singing because I feel like accents get lost in music unless they are specifically annunciated.

It's not bad, but I wonder how much staying power this has. I think it's too new for lists like this.

Kind of on the fence about this one. Very polished and stylish, but I'm not sure there's all that much there under the surface.

Not my favorite type of music, but it's good for what it is. 3 stars.

Peak feminist lyrics. Cool beats

Do you like choirs?

I liked A Complication Woman far more than I expected, and yeah it's too recent to be on here, but I didn't know anything about her and came away pretty interested. It's good pop with enough throwback hooks and stylings to the late 90s/early 00s to grab the nostalgia side of me, it's executed well, there's a little bit too much of her spoken word stuff mixed into songs that takes the edge of the impact it has at first, but largely more good than bad overall. I Do And I Don't Care, Mother and If Not Now It's Soon are really good, high 3/5 and if her other work is better than this I'm gonna check it out.

Favourite songs: Cheers to Me, Mother, Focus is Power, The Curse, The Deep Blue Okay Least favourite songs: What Now 3/5

I remember when this came out last year and I wanted to check it out at some point. I was vaguely familiar with her (I forgot she was on the Taskmaster New Year's Treat and she also sang a song with Scissor Sisters when they performed in London last year) but I hadn't rushed to check her out. This confirms I didn't need to rush. It's fine but tepid. Definitely don't see it having real staying power. It's not bad but it's just not amazing. My personal rating: 3/5 My rating relative to the list: 3/5 Should this have been included on the original list? No.

Quite nice

This is just a bit too maximalist for me. The music, the production, and the lyrics all push in the same direction. The lyrics are often described as diaristic, but for me they miss that personal touch. Instead of feeling intimate, they come across as declarative and aimed outward. That might well be the point, and I may not be the intended audience. But on two listens, it doesn’t land. The message is clear, but the delivery feels heavy-handed, and the emotional connection never quite forms.

Never heard of this before seeing it here. It was a good listen.

April 27, 2026 HL: "Focus is Power", "If Not Now, It's Soon", "The Curse", "Cheers to Me" So, I actually found out about this in a WORST of 2025 list (Paste), which seeing as it's also in best-of lists (The Economist), I'm really intrigued about this Update: 3/5, neither the worst nor the best of 2025. Coming to you live, from the fence I sit on Okay, huh- it's kinda all over the place. The gospel at the opening segueing into dance pop was cool, but then the reverse happens, dance-pop to gospel in "69"/"What Now", and it feels strange and disjointed. It's not a proper bookend, either, since the album actually finishes on "The Deep Blue Okay", which along with the more abrasive "Lies" are songs that might grow on me. (That "I might fucking try" line is pretty great though) As a first foray into Self Esteem's music, it was a pretty good time overall, despite feeling that this album is inconsistent. There should be more Northern English pop divas in the world The orchestral backing made me think of one of my favourite albums this year, so I may as well shout it out- RAYE's This Music May Contain Hope

This is my introduction to Self Esteem - what a weird artifact! Sounds like kinda generic pop, except for the lyrics, that sound like they'd alienate quite a few listeners? I generally dig the lyrics and the message, but at the end of the day it sounds like a straight up pop album, and that's just not my bag, unfortunately. Fave tracks - "I Do and I Don't Care" is a captivating opener, "In Plain Sight" and "Lies" make a fun one-two,

What in the absolute sweet fuck is this album? I have no idea what to think of it because it could be a 1 at some points and a 4 at others and everything in between. I wish I could give this a ??/5 The 69 song certainly didn't help with it being any less of a weird ass album. I think in personal enjoyment this was a 2 but I have to respect how off the wall it was so i am going to give it a 3.

This one is kind of all over the place. On first listen I enjoyed it quite a bit, but on re-listen it lost some of its luster. Like its not bad, but it does kind of feel like its trying too hard. Favorites that held up were Mother and Lies. The rest varied from okay to bordering on awful (Focus Is Power, The Curse). Very low 3 for me.

Self Esteem certainly feels like she is swinging for the fences with this one. Big, dramatic, anthemic pop with lots of power and attitude. An enjoyable entertaining listen but I'm not sure how timeless it will be. Two thumbs up for the perfect album art which represents the feel of the album to a T.

The number of people adding albums released less than a year ago baffles me. Plenty of LPs in the modern canon that have yet to be added yet we're getting albums from last year that will be forgotten as soon as their promo cycle ends. Case in point, this LP has little to offer in the way of staying power – the pop meets spoken-word elements don't stand out relative to other efforts in the genre, and the instrumentals are pretty limp, failing to support the prominent vocals up front in the mix with any kind of notable melody. The whole effort reminds me of the SAULT LP on the main list, an album which wanted to say big things about the state of the world but only offered a slapdash mix of vague gestures and forgettable instrumentals towards that goal. If this is really your idea of /the/ album to listen to before you die, you're probably missing out on a big chunk of what's happened musically in the last 20 years.

Very boring, generic pop. Go off queen or whatever, but man does this feel like it's been specifically engineered to make me feel like I'm trapped in a time rift for seven millennia. Bonus points for the cover because it's really fucking funny to me for some reason. Can't look at it without thinking of that one meme sound of an extremely loud burp.

For each user submission I will decide if I believe it was submitted to "correct the record" and deserves inclusion on the main list or if its more of a personal favorite or pet album of the user. Pet album because its so recent. I still don't really like seeing albums that are so new, need some time to see if it stands up. I did like the 69 song though

A bit disappointing from someone I like, have enjoyed some of her music but think she’s run out of ideas here.

Not my kind of indie pop music but anything this recent seems like recency bias over personal favorite album. Who am I to judge (although that’s part of the website). Even for a brand new album this get a bit bland. Some of the choir based songs were good but others were a bit flat and overly repetitive. Some of the electronic production was good but other times it felt forced. This album just didn’t do it for me. 5.6/10

It's some fairly standard dirty-talking pop music

I'm not quite sure how to take this record, there’s plenty to admire here — the ambition, the scale, the layered production, the sheer force of personality. It wants to be bold, confrontational and emotionally expansive. But for me, it rarely got me where I wanted it to. There are flashes of something stronger — moments of vulnerability and a few striking arrangements — but as a whole it felt strangely exhausting, i kept checking to see how many tracks were left. I suppose I respect the intent more than I enjoyed the experience.

I can appreciate that I had absolutely no clue what was coming at the start of every song, unfortunately I didn’t really like what came. Throwing out some mixed signals with gospel and then 69ing.

To think I was actually excited to give this one a try...nothing catchy about it, just boring, down tempo electro pop (now with choirs!). Almost too self-serious at times. I found myself counting down the minutes until it was over so I could move to something else. 1/5