15.07.24

Rising alt-pop star Remi Wolf’s colourful second album shows her at a playful and intriguing stage in her artistry

Remi Wolf is a pop star who could only have thrived in this decade. A former Junior Olympic ski-racer turned American Idol contestant, the Californian broke through in 2020 with a viral hit, Photo ID, before releasing a trio of dog-themed EPs and dropping her debut album, Juno, in 2021. She taps into stan culture with a smirk – her fans are known as ‘Remjobs’ – and that humour shines through in her music, delivered as sharp as a sour candy and showing a deft understanding of experimental pop, outmanoeuvring many of her hyperpop-adjacent peers. On her second album, Big Ideas, Remi Wolf creates a sonic-splatter effect, stretching her voice into oversized choruses and flexing her talent for stream-of-consciousness storytelling.

In the spirit of Olivia Rodrigo, whom she recently supported on tour, Wolf blends genres like eyeshadows: smudging electro-pop, funk, grunge and soul into a signature look and sound. Take Toro, a hedonistic jam, all funk and disco synths. Here, in her sweet, raspy inflection, she sings: “Dancing around/ Spilling wine/ You look good in my hotel robe.” Elsewhere, the scorching Alone in Miami is destined to be a phones-in-the-air summer anthem, built around Wolf’s knack for serving up evocative lyrical collages (think: nods to “crypto bros”, DMs from pop stars, “eating cubanos”, and listening to German techno from outside a festival tent) and an earworm chorus about romantic vulnerability. On Kangaroo, chillwave textures and cooing harmonies are cut through with a frenzied no wave sax breakdown. It has a decidedly scrappy indie spirit – which crops up again, albeit in a different mode, on the stripped-back crackle of bonus track Just the Start, reminiscent of NY anti-folk heroes The Moldy Peaches. 

Allusions like these feel just right for Remi Wolf, who comes across as naturally goofy and happy to show it; “Yeah I’m allergic/ But I like it a lot!” she sings on the psychedelic Cherries and Cream. Her song titles are pleasingly nonsensical, too – Frog Rock, for one. On Cinderella, she steps out and draws a crowd with a flavourful, horn-led bop that chronicles the many moods she cycled through while writing down these Big Ideas. Coupled with playful sound effects – kerchings, animal noises and whistles pop up throughout – the album lives somewhere between the sublime, sincere and ridiculous.  

Like any pop star worth their salt, Wolf can do confessional and introspective, too. On 2021’s Liquor Store, Wolf details her struggles with addiction, and she brings the same emotional candour to Soup – a slick, lung-buster blessed with sleek 80s riffs and a skyscraping chorus featuring a pop lyric all-timer: “I don’t wanna live without you.” Arguably, though, Big Ideas is at its best when channelling the energy of a strong-minded girl gang; a vibe, and a bond, that she’s building between herself and her fans. By the end of the album, you’ll totally want to join. 

There’s a lot of virality, humour and lore in pop right now – in Charli XCX’s club brattiness and Sabrina Carpenter’s femme bubblegum silliness especially – and with that framework very much in mind, Remi Wolf pulls off the increasingly difficult feat of cutting through the noise by making her own almighty racket. A charmer with a killer voice and fun, hooky, crossover tunes, Wolf comes across on Big Ideas as a true original.

April Clare Welsh