Released: August 30
‘I break the rules and make them pop’ declares Betty Boo on the title song from her brilliant fourth studio album ‘Rip Up The Rulebook’.
Arriving two years after the ‘90s icon’s surprise comeback ‘Boomerang’, the new project is without question her most diverse to date, fusing the hip-hop icon’s first love with elements of pop, EDM, new wave and disco for a non-stop run of unapologetic anthems.
The aforementioned track pairs Boo – a pioneer who, 35 years ago, helped bring female rap into the mainstream charts with a run of hit records that became classics of the era – with American MC Grandmaster Caz and flips a finger to the expectations imposed on women by society: ‘It’s time to feel free, so c’mon ladies!’
It’s one of two collaborations on the album, alongside first release It Was Beautiful which features rising star HEX and carries a laid-back, Post Malone vibe that’s a breath of fresh air, while still channeling her inimitable Boo charm.
Now an independent artist, recording with long running collaborators Andy Wright and Gavin Goldberg and releasing via her own Betty Boo Records, it’s one of several self-referential moments on the LP. ‘I own my own melodies, make my own harmonies / There’s no way of stopping me!’ the BRIT Award-winner gleams on Am I Dreaming? as she reflects upon her journey from 1989 to now, while the feelgood anthem Heatwave sees her ‘turning up the heat’ and reconnecting with audiences in the second chapter of her career: ‘I know that there’s la la love for me!’
Effortlessly current, there are still plenty of nods to the past; opening number Barbarella is the perfect pop song that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Kylie record and references the sci-fi icon that Boo channeled in the Where Are You Baby? video, while One Day is stacked with hooks and might be her most singalong-friendly offering since she wrote Pure And Simple for Hear’Say.
Building upon the sound of recent single Shining Star, Spotlight is infused with classic dance floor motifs that prove irresistible, while the curious Cupcake is an ‘amuse bouche’ for a second half that sees the artist at her most experimental, turning up the tempo on the sun-soaked scorcher Bring On The Summer and channeling Blondie on the raucous Good Night Out.
A standout not only from the record but Betty Boo’s decades-spanning career, penultimate song Hypnotic is the biggest revelation on ‘Rip Up The Rulebook’; a thundering electronic beat underpins an attitude-heavy delivery that’s reminiscent of her 2007 Jack Rokka collaboration Take Off and wouldn’t sound out of place on Radio 1 as she purrs: ‘Pull me in, pull me out / Got me spinning round and round in a trance…’
Closing with the closest thing to a Boo ballad, Days Like These, it’s a 180 from the previous track – or, indeed, anything else on the album – and just further proof that, three and a half decades into her career, Betty Boo has not only delivered her strongest work to date, but as a rapper, singer, songwriter, and producer, she remains one of the finest pop stars of her generation.
