Released: October 6
The lost album from Alexis Strum finally sees the light of day after two decades in the vault as one of pop’s greatest acts of redemption.
It was not once but twice that the rising star’s efforts to make it big were thwarted – first after a mix-up with lyrics concerning Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, then in the midst of a record label reshuffle – resulting in her exiting the industry for decades.
Now, after fans on social media rallied to get the LP heard, ‘Cocoon’ finally arrives as the long-overdue showcase of her pop credentials.
Lead single, Bad Haircut, sets the tone for the record, adopting a more mature sound that the tracks recorded for her previous LP – which delivered the electronic single Addicted – while maintaining the pure vocals and commercial hooks that characterised her sound.
Carrying through the mid tempo, singer-songwriter vibe of the mid-’00s charts, tracks like Heart Over Mind and Alright sound effortlessly cool, while piano ballads It Could Be You and Strike A Light lean into a soundscape that was – back then at least – ahead of her years.
There’s an irony in its name; Strum’s transformation into a pop star has been notably longer than expected, but its title song becomes all the more poignant with that in mind. ‘Tell me that I’m safe / I need to hear it all of the time’ she sings, reading now as a thank you to the fans that stuck by her side and reached out to bring her back into the spotlight.
Having penned pop classics like Kylie’s Still Standing and Rachel Stevens’ Nothing Good About This Goodbye, ‘Cocoon’ is a distinctly banger-free zone (some of the original remixes more than make up for that, it must be said) – we wouldn’t be mad if she turned up the heat occasionally, since she does it so well.
That’s not what this album is about, though; less like a debut, it reads more as a slick body of work from an established artist at their creative peak. Perhaps the situation surrounding her earlier recordings compelled Strum to go hard or go home, but if this is the quality of work she was producing in her 20s, imagine what could have been on the albums that followed…
