What do you want from your stars? <person>Ariana Grande</person> rules pop with her fascinating alchemy of relatable emotion and unearthly self-possession. Dodie, discovered on YouTube rather than Nickelodeon, is far more accessible.
The problem with crowd-funded stardom is that it nudges you into blandness, rough edges sanded off by a constant craving for shares and likes. The Essex 23-year-old’s third EP is frustrating, as it demonstrates perfectly why she’s built a huge following online and why it will be difficult to turn that into anything more substantial. These seven songs are all inoffensive playlist folk-pop, foregrounding personality over polish, but any sense of intrigue is confined to the lyrics.
Every song has a sliver of something sour hiding underneath the honey. “She tastes like birthday cake and storytime and fall/ but to her, I taste of nothing at all,” murmurs She, while the otherwise oleaginous Human runs: “Unzip your skin and let me have a see”. It’s not enough, though, unless you’re already invested in Dodie’s quiet progress.