Song Review - Tough Love

Tough Love

by Jessie Ware

I had a funny kind of "oh yeah!" moment when the name Jessie Ware appeared on my laptop monitor recently. "Oh yeah" in numerous senses. The first being almost a question, a thought of "whatever happened to Jessie Ware?", because while I was first introduced to her lovely sounds back in 2012, she had kind of disappeared from my radar since, appearing briefly again in 2013, but then fading off to that place in my mind that some awesome musicians go, somewhere I imagine is actually quite delightful, considering the amount of talented people who are probably hanging out together in said place. Regardless, wherever she has actually been in real life, with her latest track 'Tough Love' it's an absolute pleasure to have her back. 

"Oh yeah!" is also what I thought when I heard Jessie's voice singing those familiar high notes she hits so well, the oh so tough lyrics being sung so perfectly in such a simultaneously gentle and dramatic fashion; "so you wanna be a man about it, do you have to, have you figured out all you wanted, have you?" and "oh yeah" is how I felt about the pulsating beats and emotive, quick synths dragging me through the song, it's a sound I could obsess about that takes me back to the first time I heard her sweet sounds and now I regret having a minor mind blank and putting her in that lonely place in my mind that some musicians go.

The other "oh yeah!" sense I felt was one of those types that if I was a sporting type, I might punch my fist in the air in some way, because it was an "oh yeah!" as in "I really reeeeeeally like this!" With a song this good, I doubt she'll slip back into oblivion in my mind, this one I could hear a thousand times over and still like. I'm more than happy to have her back at the front of my mind and it's somewhere I hope she stays, with clips that look this good and oh so subtly angry songs she's an artist I won't be forgetting again any time soon. Jessie Ware, welcome back to my world. "Oh yeah!"

Jo Michelmore gives 'Tough Love' three and a half The xx heads out of five...