PONY

A beautiful new offering, ‘Pony’ is equal parts heart wrenching and hopeful, and shows Rex back at his very finest.

Rex’s true feelings have been told marvellously within this sonic journal. Through his own unique artistry, Rex has created an album that is wonderfully creative. This third album cements his status as a nascent national treasure.

His unique pop prosody and production skills, more sophisticated than ever in Pony, foretell that his sound will continue progressing to new creative heights, with the heft of catchy pop music and the inventiveness of its growing indie subgenre.

Pony isn’t perfect, but more importantly it is never boring. Even in the slight missteps, there is something to be admired. ... It is easily one of the most interesting and exciting pop records of the year.

The personal trauma behind pony was evidently tough, but hope has rarely sounded so fresh. [Dec 2019, p.110]

I think there’s room for “alternative hip-hop” in the mix, not everything in rap needs to be swaggering cock grabbing male posturing, and the difference between a rapper who sings and a singer who raps has diminished greatly. That doesn’t mean “Pony” is going to take the place of all-time classics like Organized Konfusion in my rotation, but it does mean that I can see a more open-minded interpretation of rap music as not necessarily destroying hip-hop music and culture. Rex Orange County has his place too.