What's considered a "big idea"? According to Remi Wolf, "love, lust, anger, fantasies, harsh realities, vices, low lows and high highs" are the ones worth writing big songs about. And the Palo Alto-born singer's music certainly is big. Her 2021 debut Juno burst onto the scene with its kaleidoscopic colours and Wolf's lion roar of a voice, her musings on pandemic boredom, volcanos and Anthony Kiedis ringing larger than life. From her self-released EP You're A Dog! in 2019 onward, Wolf made it clear that she was doing eccentric, maximalist, funky pop in her own way, on her own terms — a pop star for an era less polished, more idiosyncratic.
On her sophomore album Big Ideas, Wolf takes all of the big ideas in her head and throws them like neon splatter onto an already messy canvas. Big Ideas shows Wolf doing more of what she does best: brash, explosive pop with a don't-give-a-fuck spirit and touches of vulnerable self-reflection and soul, but expanding her palette with more experimentation.
"Cinderella" is a funky, mood-swinging opener, where Wolf's longtime producer and collaborator Jared Solomon adds the little quirks and touches that make her sound distinct to her, with whistles, triangle clangs and the dinging of a hotel lobby bell chirping in the background. It leans more radio-friendly, and as an opening track, doesn't yet reveal how broad and enormous the rest of the album will get. "Soup" takes an '80s synthpop route, a desperate plea for a lover to stay overlaid with a shiny, glittering filter. Wolf's never been a stranger to conveying anxiety and precariousness in her music, but more than any previous project, Big Ideas deals with dichotomy — chasing after love and being alone, staying and going, closeness and independence.
Wolf sounds like she's having the time of her life showcasing her range as a vocalist and songwriter. Songs like the 1950s-crooner inspired "Motorcycle," where she plays with the Harley Davidson hometown hero and the doting, domesticity-craving housewife archetypes, shifts to "Toro," a bloated, meaty, horny disco track that overwhelms the senses. "Frog Rock" is the Remi Wolf from past EPs and Juno, a glitchy record scratch full of offbeat attitude and scathing takes on the people and environments around her, along with "Pitiful," a bouncy tune that makes existential ennui and isolation sound fun.
But it's highlights like "Cherries and Cream," a psychedelic, acid-drenched dream, where Wolf begins to go all over the place with her expansion of genre and sound; Wolf can't resist a person she knows she shouldn't have, whose kisses tastes like fruits, including avocado; "Yeah, I'm allergic, but I like it a lot," she sings with a wry grin in her voice. "Wave" is another hotspot, veering into smudgy eyeliner and platform boots arena rock with a swampy bassline — it's a fantastic look on Wolf. It's the strong, confident grasp she and Solomon have on her base sonic aesthetic that make the springboard of new sounds work. Even tracks like "Alone in Miami" or "Kangaroo" that start out like more typical Remi Wolf fare pick up with chaotic flair in the back half.
Before ending on another punchy disco-pop note with "Slay Bitch," Wolf grinds to a pause on the penultimate "Just the Start," an acoustic campfire track, to spill her fears and doubts about her career and herself. She stumbles over the intro, asking an accompanist to start again, confessing "I call myself an artist and sometimes I think it's true / But I walk heavy across the water, I debunk myself to blue" and "I don't wanna party, but I don't really wanna work / Either way I will be lonely, either way I'm cursed." Like a side glance she shoots to an omnipotent camera mounted on the wall, Wolf reminds us that she doesn't repress anything, even on songs about repression, and that there are big feelings beneath her bravado — frightening and icky ones, but joyous ones too.