Album Review: to hell with it [Mixtape] by Pinkpantheress

Until only recently, she was completely anonymous. PinkPantheress - an alias that bridges together references to the cartoon 'The Pink Panther' and Pantheress (the answer a contestant on The Chase gave to the question "What is the name of a female panther?") - was once just a TikTok user releasing snippets of music. Eventually filtering her way onto millions of 'for you' pages, somehow this success doesn't feel like it's been driving solely by an algorithm.

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The resurgence of nostalgia as a descriptor for an artist's music style has morphed into a double-eged sword. When reaching back to incorporate the sounds of bygone eras, varying success in execution creates a vicious dichotomy. Cheap imitations that surgically remove the heart of reference tracks get tagged with the label of "nostalgia-bait," reeking of unoriginality and desperation.

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Within the cultural whirlpool of TikTok, home movies of high schoolers from 2004 represent a strange utopia: "[Life] just seemed to be happier and easier back then," reads a top comment on a popular video. Like many of her peers, the British producer and singer PinkPantheress projects a sense of wistfulness about the early aughts. "[M]usic was so unpolished and cool because I feel like people weren't afraid of being a little bit cringe," she told i-D.

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All aboard the hype train; Pinkpantheress is driving, and she knows exactly what direction she wants to go in. Every now and then, there's an artist that comes along that gets all the music editors excited. They'll be young, smart, their music will cover a variety of bases, and they may well be at the forefront of a new internet or social media trend.

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