How one album redefined the boundaries of experimental pop and paved the way for a new generation of boundary-pushing artists, challenging industry norms and expanding the very definition of mainstream music in the decade since its release
Words: Dan Harrison.
True paradigm shifts are rare. Rarer still are the albums that not only shift said paradigms but seem to exist outside of them entirely, creating their own gravitational pull, bending the very fabric of musical space-time around them. FKA Twigs’ ‘LP1’, released a decade ago today (6th August), is one such cosmic anomaly – a debut that arrived not so much fully formed as fully evolved.
To revisit ‘LP1’ in 2024 is to be reminded of its startling prescience, its unapologetic weirdness, and its profound impact on the musical landscape of the past decade. It’s a record that feels at once intimately of its time and strangely out of the temporal flow altogether – a testament to Tahliah Barnett’s singular vision and her refusal to be bound by the expectations of what a pop star should be, sound like, or represent.
Ten years ago, the charts were dominated by the likes of Ed Sheeran’s ‘x’ and Sam Smith’s ‘In the Lonely Hour’: big pop records that understood the rules and played them well. But, in the shadows of East London, a former backup dancer was quietly preparing to flip the whole game board, laying the groundwork for a future where the bold and unconventional would inherit the Earth.
‘LP1’ landed like a UFO in a field of crop circles – strange, otherworldly, and impossible to ignore. From the opening notes of ‘Preface’, with its ghostly choral harmonies and skittering beats, it was clear that this was not just another R&B album, not just another electronic experiment, not just another anything. This was something entirely new, a blueprint for a pop landscape where the unusual would become the coveted.
Take ‘Two Weeks’, the album’s lead single and still its most immediately arresting track. On paper, it’s a song about desire – hardly revolutionary subject matter. But in Twigs’ hands, desire becomes something altogether more complex, more dangerous. “Higher than a motherfucker, dreaming of you as my lover,” she breathes over a beat that throbs like an arrhythmic heart, her voice simultaneously ethereal and carnal. It’s pop reimagined by David Lynch, desire filtered through a prism of surrealism and body horror – a far cry from the sanitised pop of the day, but a harbinger of the uncompromising artistry that would come to define the genre’s cutting edge.
This subversion of expectations runs throughout ‘LP1’. Twigs takes the tropes of R&B – sensuality, vulnerability, heartbreak – and twists them into new, often unsettling shapes. ‘Lights On’ turns the standard sexy slow jam into a meditation on trust and exposure. “When I trust you we can do it with the lights on,” Twigs whispers, a line that could be about sex but feels more like a metaphor for the terrifying prospect of true intimacy in a world of carefully curated personas. It’s this unflinching exploration of the uncomfortable that links Twigs to today’s pop vanguard, from Billie Eilish’s whispered confessionals to Charli xcx’s abrasive hyperpop.
Twigs’ vocals on ‘LP1’ are a masterclass in control and restraint. She rarely belts or showboats, instead using her voice as another instrument in the mix, weaving it through the production like a silvery thread. On ‘Pendulum’, her voice is layered and distorted until it sounds like a choir of alternate universe versions of herself, each one slightly out of phase with the others. It’s a sonic representation of fractured identity that feels more relevant than ever in our era of multiple online personas and curated realities – a theme that resonates strongly with the Gen Z artists currently reshaping pop in their own image.
The production, courtesy of pioneering collaborators like Arca and Emile Haynie, creates soundscapes that feel like fever dreams – sparse yet intricate, cold yet intimate. Beats stutter and glitch, synths warp and distort, and through it all, Twigs’ voice floats like a ghost in the machine. It’s the sound of R&B being dismantled and rebuilt as a cyborg, beautiful and unsettling in equal measure.
Yet for all its futuristic sheen, ‘LP1’ is also deeply, vulnerably human. In ‘Numbers’, Twigs lays bare the insecurities that plague relationships: “Was I just a number to you?” It’s a sentiment that could have been trite in lesser hands, but Twigs delivers it with such raw emotion that it feels like eavesdropping on someone’s most private thoughts. This balance of the experimental and raw emotion is what makes ‘LP1’ not just a great album but an influential one, paving the way for artists who refuse to choose between experimentation and emotional resonance.
‘LP1′ redefined what pop music could be. In a genre often criticised for its formulaic approach, Twigs showed that you could be innovative and accessible, avant-garde and emotionally resonant. She proved that pop music could be art without sacrificing its ability to connect viscerally with listeners. It’s a lesson well-learned by today’s crop of pop innovators, who seem to have taken Twigs’ maxim of ‘the weirder, the better’ to heart.
As a mixed-race woman making experimental pop, Twigs defied an industry that often pigeonholed people of colour. While boundary-pushing work has always existed beyond the mainstream, the commercial music business, plagued by institutional racism, frequently confined Black female voices to narrow R&B lanes. Twigs, however, pursued her own vision, challenging the industry to broaden its understanding of Black artistry in the popular sphere. Her work amplified a movement creating without the burden of outdated expectations, contributing to a landscape of true artistic choice. In the spotlight, Twigs helped bridge the gap between innovative underground scenes and what major labels deemed commercially viable.
The visual aspect of ‘LP1’ is equally revolutionary. The album’s artwork, with its stark, alien beauty, felt like a mission statement – this was not an artist interested in conforming to traditional notions of pop star glamour. The videos, particularly for ‘Two Weeks’ and ‘Pendulum’, were less promotional tools than integral parts of the overall artistic vision. In ‘Two Weeks’, Twigs presents herself as a giant goddess, surrounded by miniature dancing versions of herself – a visual metaphor for self-love and empowerment that feels like a middle finger to the male gaze. ‘Pendulum’, with Twigs bound by her own hair, is a haunting exploration of self-restriction and liberation. These visuals didn’t just complement the music; they expanded it, creating a multi-sensory experience that was as much performance art as pop music – a signpost to ten years of visual artistry Twigs would bring to all her work.
A decade later, the ripples of ‘LP1′ are still felt. In a music landscape where genre boundaries are increasingly blurry, and artists are pushing pop into ever more experimental territories, Twigs’ debut feels less like an outlier and more as a prophecy spoken. Its lasting impact lies not in creating a template for others to follow but in encouraging artists to throw out the template altogether to pursue their unique vision without fear.
Revisiting the album now, it’s striking how fresh it still sounds. Tracks like ‘Hours’ and ‘Closer’ still have the power to stop you in your tracks, to make you pause whatever you’re doing and just listen. In a world of instant gratification and skip-to-the-next-track listening habits, ‘LP1’ demands your full attention, revealing new layers with each listen. This commitment to depth and complexity in pop is something that today’s most exciting artists continue to champion, refusing to dumb down their art for mass consumption.
As we hit the decade mark since ‘LP1”s release, Twigs has continued to evolve. From the raw vulnerability of ‘Magdalene’ to the eclectic experimentation of ‘Caprisongs’, she’s pushed boundaries and defied expectations. Yet ‘LP1’ remains a singular achievement: a debut that didn’t just announce an exciting new artist but heralded a new way of thinking about pop itself.
In many ways, we’re still catching up to ‘LP1’. Its fusion of the personal and the bohemian, its complex explorations of identity and desire, its refusal to be easily categorised – these elements feel incredibly of the moment in 2024. As we navigate an increasingly complex and fragmented cultural landscape, ‘LP1’ feels less like a relic of the past and more like a roadmap for the future.
‘LP1′ stands as a testament to the power of artistic courage, a decade-old blast of innovation that still shocks, moves, and inspires. Rather than running on empty, endlessly recycling past glories, it remains a beacon for those who dare to be different. Twigs’ debut reminds us what’s possible when an artist follows their vision without compromise and challenges us to embrace our own weirdness and vulnerability. In a world seemingly designed to sand down our edges, the new wave of pop icons in 2024 are the ones who refuse to lose their weird. ‘LP1”s legacy – and its battle cry – rings clear: refuse to be categorised, contained, or silenced. The future of pop depends on it.
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