Jenny Hval’s music has always been subversive, with her borderline-clinical dissections of love and identity favoring highly literate, complex lyricism over pop immediacy. On Classic Objects, the Norwegian singer-songwriter steps outside of herself to consider her position as an object of the intertwining systems of capitalism and patriarchy. While Hval muses on “the industrial happiness complex” and envisions life after its collapse from a characteristically askew perspective, her song structures, which introduce ambient drones and textured percussion with measured pacing, surprise and captivate as often as her lyrics.
Much of the songwriting on Classic Objects is frank and unfiltered, like Hval’s description of marriage as “a normcore institution” on “Year of Love.” This suspicion of love is consistent with earlier songs like the danceable “Ashes to Ashes,” from 2019’s The Practice of Love, and the stunning “Conceptual Romance,” from 2016’s Blood Bitch, but her flattening of relationships into heterotemporal transactions risks feeling sterile. However, the propulsive electric guitar line (which is vaguely reminiscent of Toto’s “Africa”) and persistently ringing triangle on “Year of Love” give the impression of a world swirling around Hval, heightening the feelings of isolation and artistic self-doubt in lines like “I’m just a stagehand.”
The album’s emotional underpinnings can be unclear at first, but through the careful construction of her songs, many of which start to swell right around their midpoint, Hval subtly charts the types of loneliness that have led her to question her place in the world. “American Coffee” opens with Hval mulling the meaning of home, accompanied by a plaintive organ. Then, after half a song’s worth of sullen self-examination, a lively drumbeat kicks in, marking a change in Hval’s thinking and in her performance as she embellishes personal (and increasingly uncomfortable) anecdotes with unexpectedly complex vocal runs.
Likewise, “Jupiter,” the album’s climax, starts at a Texas roadside attraction called Prada Marfa before taking off into outer space, its noisy drums accenting Hval’s ethereal vocals. The connection between arid West Texas and a distant, gargantuan celestial body underscores the singer’s loneliness, and the song’s floating vocal line epitomizes one of the album’s greatest strengths: Hval’s knack for inscrutably intoxicating melodies. The sumptuousness of her choruses keenly balances the stream-of-consciousness quality of her verses, such as her remarks on discarded chewing gum and cigarette butts on standout track “Cemetery of Splendour” and her rhythm-stretching real-time descriptions of clouds on “Year of Sky.”
Perhaps above all else, Classic Objects is thoughtful or, really, defined by thought. The song structures are clever, the production is deeply layered, and the lyrics, which largely catalog Hval’s thoughts, are writerly and complex. Hval, who’s a published novelist, uses copyright law as a stand-in for the broader commodification and confinement of art on “The Revolution Will Not Be Owned,” ending the album with one of her most striking lyrics: “What lies by my bed/An impossible creature/Abject and succulent.” She leaves us in the same state as she is in: unsettled, intrigued, and confronted with obscure sublimity.
Since 2001, we've brought you uncompromising, candid takes on the world of film, music, television, video games, theater, and more. Independently owned and operated publications like Slant have been hit hard in recent years, but we’re committed to keeping our content free and accessible—meaning no paywalls or fees.
If you like what we do, please consider subscribing to our Patreon or making a donation.
