That! Feels Good! – Jessie Ware ★★★½

Year	Album	Artist	Stars	Score	Genre
2023	That! Feels Good!	Jessie Ware	★★★½	77	Pop	Dance Pop	Disco

Jessie Ware continues to get better and better with each release, and her 2023 album, similarly, gets better and better as it goes.

After 2020’s What’s Your Pleasure? saw her fully embrace disco music, That! Feels Good! is somehow smoother, more groovy and more fun. There’s a sense of elegance in the presentation, from the glistening instrumentals to Ware’s fantastic sensual and showy vocals. It’s simplified disco music, yes — with a lot of the drawn-out grooves of the 70s and 80s condensed into tight, 4 minute presentations — but the energy and soul and funk is there. 

At the top of the album, “That! Feels Good,” “Free Yourself ” and “Pearls” are all about letting loose and having a good time. “Hello Love” and  “Begin Again” bring soul-influenced vocals. “Shake the Bottle” and “Beautiful People” have new-wave funk vibes, with the latter featuring these Bowie “Let’s Dance” kind of synth horns. “Freak Me Now” has a French house groove, and “Lightning” brings more of a modern R&B twist to the album, similar to the indie pop Ware put out in the early 2010s. 

The record is intentionally (I think) campy at times, with some stereotypical dance lyrical themes (“Shake The Bottle “ is particularly cringy) and overdone production, but it’s all in good fun.