Clarity

With a buoyant and self-aware use of slang that will have you opening up Urban Dictionary, paired with the one-track-per-week release schedule and the songs to back it up, Kim proves herself to be a true millennial pop princess in waiting.

On Clarity she establishes a glamorously appealing pop persona that’s all her own: resilient, materialistic, ready and able to call the shots.

Pop music today is arguably more political than ever, but the very best pop songs offer either campy escapism or strengthening mantras. Petras clearly knows this. Her carefree hooks glisten like suits of armour.

Clarity might be the best-constructed collection of R&B-inflected pop music by a female European singer since Robyn’s “Robyn Is Here” in 1995. ... On a musical level, most of it works, but it’s missing the element of surprise.

She’s so versatile that it’s difficult to identify her musical ground zero. ... She’s the glue holding everything together—think a female Travis Scott, one who grew up worshipping Madonna and the Spice Girls instead of Drake and Kanye West. At the same time, the sheer intensity of every song on Clarity makes it tough to digest in one sitting.