Hope Tala - Hope Handwritten (2025) [Official Digital Download]

It's remarkable that this is Hope Tala's first album, given that three of her songs have already made Barack Obama's annual summer playlist: "All My Girls Like to Fight" (2020), "Cherries" (2022), and "I Can't Even Cry" (2024). The English singer-songwriter has had a slow start since self-releasing a pair of EPs that got her signed to a major label in 2020. While there was a steady stream of promising singles, the deal never led to an LP. But now she's living up to her potential with a collection of songs that are doing all they can to summon summer. The lightly jazzy cafe pop of "Growing Pains (Prologue)" is like a gentle, warm wave, cresting with romantic Hollywood movie violins, while "Lights Camera Action" breezes by with plinking piano and yacht rock guitar. Both "Lose My Mind" and Obama's favorite, "I Can't Even Cry," tap into her family's Jamaican roots with island rhythm. The latter, fueled by late-night beach-bar guitar, finds Tala dealing with the pain of a heartbreak ("Thought you were the one that I'd be with/ Strolling hand in hand like little kids/ Until you turned around and fucked with it"), a running theme. The singer makes clear she is in love with falling in love—except for when she's driven crazy by it. She's said "Bad Love God," with its hip-swish guitar and sultry bass, is about being in the "grip of having a new romantic obsession." Tala tries to play it cool on "Breaking Isn't What a Heart Is For," produced by Greg Kurstin (Adele, Sia), crooning with a feathery touch how "Loving you is war/ At first the drama thrills me/ But I just can't let it kill me"—but the swoony, cinematic strings give away her romantic side. After all, this is someone who has copped to sending a girl a love song after meeting her once. "I've got way too much to lose/ I let myself get confused/ I messed up my priorities/ Now I'll always be stuck with this wound," she sings, stung again, on "Jumping the Gun." Her West London accent not smoothed down, Tala can do soft and sweet ("Phoenix"), silky ("Heartbeat (the end)"), Lily Allen-style anxious ("Magic or Medicine," boosted by a clicky nervous beat and gospel-soul backing vocals) and spit a low-key rap line on "Survival," a catchy bit of R&B pop. And she's working to listen to her head as well as her heart: "I really dodged a bullet," she sings with sigh-of-relief gratitude about losing an ex on sunny "Thank Goodness."

TRACKLIST

1. Hope Tala - Growing Pains (Prologue)
2. Hope Tala - Jumping the Gun
3. Hope Tala - Lights Camera Action
4. Hope Tala - Magic or Medicine
5. Hope Tala - Breaking Isn’t What a Heart Is For
6. Hope Tala - I Can’t Even Cry
7. Hope Tala - Thank Goodness
8. Hope Tala - Survival
9. Hope Tala - Phoenix
10. Hope Tala - Fall Too Hard
11. Hope Tala - Lose My Mind
12. Hope Tala - Bad Love God
13. Hope Tala - A Story To Tell/Where I Begin
14. Hope Tala - Miracle
15. Hope Tala - Shiver
16. Hope Tala - Heartbeat (the end)



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