Betty

Betty Who’s third album opens with a simple message: Do you. “Wake up and I’m feeling fly/This morning feels like summertime,” she sings on “Old Me” over a ribbon of flickering synths. “Naked in my living room/And just like that I’m over you.” If she’s singing about rebounding after a breakup, she might be looking at her ex-label, RCA, with whom she publicly parted ways in 2017. This album—her first as an independent artist—marks a new chapter. “I didn’t want any negativity or second guessing to come within a mile of this album,” the Australian singer wrote on Instagram. “It’s nothing but a bunch of weirdos in a basement or pool house making completely unashamed pop songs.”

Indeed, Betty is a glitter bomb of sass, funk, dance-floor beats, and playful innuendo that pays homage to early-2000s boy bands and pop divas. “Oh my god, I can’t behave,” she coos on “Taste,” a slippery R&B cut with shades of Justin Timberlake. “You know the worse they are, the better they taste.” And if you can’t place the myriad references on “The One” (Britney, Santana, and more JT), you don’t belong in the club.