Hopeless Romantic

Officially, 2020’s <i>Hopeless Romantic</i> is Chicago singer and rapper Tink’s debut album, despite the fact that it is the 11th release to her name and came almost a decade into her career. The LP was independently released, following years of label misadventures that resulted in the indefinite shelving of the group of songs intended to be her first album. <i>Hopeless Romantic</i> represented a major reset for her career, and Tink’s deeply thoughtful consideration of the breadth of her artistry as it existed at the dawn of the 2020s. <i>Hopeless Romantic</i> embodies everything that distinguishes Tink as a songwriter: a combination of worldly-wise and (as the title implies) expectant, simultaneously uncompromising and vulnerable. Traditionally, Tink’s best songs play out like a linear stocktaking of the competing emotions taking up space in her brain at a given moment, whether she’s envisioning sexual scenarios or chronicling the rollercoaster experience of falling in and out of love with an inconstant partner (“Cut It Out”). <i>Hopeless Romantic</i> is a masterclass in Tink’s particular brand of psychological acuity. She expertly builds mood swings into her songs, the turns in her lyrics mimicked by freely switching flows. Songs like the swaggering “2 or 3” are designed to keep the listener engaged from moment to moment, as if offering a receptive ear for a dear friend spilling her guts. The musical contrasts Tink fans look for on one of her releases are all here on <i>Hopeless Romantic</i>: she spits her hardest on “Switch’d Up”, and delivers across some of the more singular melodies of her career on the unusual shuffle “Stuck”. It’s one of her most playful and explicit projects as well, with sensual manifestos “Cum Get It”, “DoggyStyle (Can’t Let Go)” and standout “Fuck Around” spaced out across the record amid more contemplative material.