Romo (2010 album)

Romo is the fourth studio album by British singer Romo. The album was released on December 27, 2010, the same date as the release of the lead single "Music From Mars", a five-part epic condemning late 2000s-early 2010s American pop music.

Romo stated the album is self-titled to symbolize an introduction to herself following three conceptual records. The album is the follow-up to the two-part POPSTAR saga released in 2009.

Romo benefited from positive critical reception and the success of its lead single "Music From Mars" to become Romo's fourth consecutive #1 album. It also won the Urapopstar Award for Best Album at Urapopstar Awards 20.

Background
Romo's breakthrough album, 2008's Eve, was a loose concept album about "the plight of woman", with each song spotlighting the modern-day sins of women and their roots from original sin. After becoming disenchanted with her musical direction of the time, she charted into electropop territory with the single "Schizo Pop", which helped to inspire the concept of fallen popstar Belle Ball, a personification of the pitfalls of the music industry. The first album in the POPSTAR series, chronicling the beginning of Belle's career up until her untimely death by suicide, was a critical and commercial success, the second, POPSTAR 2: Belle After Death, was a critical failure and did not produce a #1 single, although it became her best-selling album to date. As a result of her setbacks at a time where her peers China and Elice Claire were enjoying the best sales and reviews of their careers, Romo strongly rethought her musical direction.

In December 2009, Romo confirmed in an interview that her fourth album would not be a concept album. She reaffirmed this vow upon the charting of POPSTAR 2's final single, "Bathroom Entourage", which became her lowest charting and lowest selling single to date and led her to apologize for releasing POPSTAR 2.

After taking some time to formulate her true thoughts into potential songs for an album that would essentially mark a musical introduction to her personality and self, Romo decided to self-title the album: "I found the writing process so much more satisfying this time around because, after all this time of trying to be someone else, I'm finally allowing myself to be me on this record. And that's why the album is self-titled, it is a reflection of myself."

Musical direction
Romo confirmed she wanted to find a musical identity that differed from the POPSTAR eras, so she announced the album would not feature any outside producers, effectively ending her two-album relationship with Indigo Peak.

The album features a diverse musical backdrop blending electronic-driven material with more experimental sounds, some songs blending both ambient music with noise. Other songs contain absolutely no electronic elements at all, harking back to the Eve era. Publications have described the direction of the album as "experimental electro", "art rock", and "anti-pop".

Lead single "Music From Mars" is a hybrid of dark electro, piano pop, and art rock. Romo is quoted as saying no other songs on the album will sound like "Music From Mars" and that it is the only song on the album to feature rapped vocals.

A collaboration with Elice Claire and China, "My Generation", was originally recorded as a pop R&B song for a scrapped duets EP, but keeping her new musical focus in mind, Romo eliminated all traces of R&B and cut out her hype shouts, replacing them with a dramatic drum loop backed by strings and a choir, giving it the feel of a movie soundtrack.

Romo revealed she would sample the bands Crystal Castles and Sleigh Bells for the album. The sample of "Kids" by Sleigh Bells appears on "Groupie Love", while a sample of "Knights" by Crystal Castles will appear on "Melancholia Melody".

Inspiration
Romo said her image, sound, and transition was inspired by Alesha's The Second Coming, which was a more experimental effort coming off the back of her most commercially accessible album, Alesha Is The Queen. The album artwork pays homage to Alesha's cover, portraying Romo in a sultry pose behind a pastel background of blue and purple.

Ironically, The Second Coming also provided the basis for Romo's more commercial material, as her 2008 single "Schizo Pop" was inspired by album cut "Blow Your Speakers Out".

Lyrical content
Many songs on the album contain songs with intense lyrics of protest and encouragement of rebellion, influenced by punk rock music. "Pandora Kills" - its title a reference to the fictional universe in the blockbuster film Avatar - looks at the effects of over-development and overpopulation of the Earth, taking its aim at an unidentified "you", assumed to be a real estate developer, who cares more about making money than the future of civilization. "Music From Mars" criticizes American pop music for increasingly lacking in quality and depth, as well as for its incessant reliance on autotune. "My Generation" takes aim at industry insiders who criticize Romo and her peers for being bad role models.

Other songs on the album are more reflective in nature. The somber lyrics of "Salt The Scars" and "Melancholia Melody" were influenced by Nick Drake and Elliott Smith. "Curtain Call", written as a tribute to the late fashion designer Alexander McQueen, was heavily inspired by Elton John's "Candle In The Wind".

The album's closing track, "Rinse, Rinse", was inspired by the aftermath of Romo's chart battle with Paulo Araujo, in which her exclamation that she would call for a global tea boycott if Paulo beat her to #1 caused Paulo to suffer a nervous breakdown.

Collaborators
Alesha contributes guest vocals to "Curtain Call", written as a tribute to fashion designer Alexander McQueen, who committed suicide on February 11, 2010; she also contributed songwriting to "Coals & Pearls", which marked the first song to appear on a Romo studio album on which Romo does not receive a songwriting credit. Elice Claire and China appear on "My Generation", which Romo has described as a "posse cut".

Romo also collaborated with newcomer MIDNIGHT on a song called "The Devil's Icon". Romo confirmed the collaboration happened after her "trend expert", a member of her management team hired to pay attention to hot newcomers and comebacks on the horizon, informed her that MIDNIGHT had become the most talked-about newcomer since her rise to stardom in 2008.

Touring
Romo went on a 10-day mini-tour performing in smaller venues to test out the album's material ahead of a longer arena tour later in the era. She chose indie rock band Vinyl Dolls as her opening act for all 10 dates.

On April 30, 2011, Romo announced her third headlining tour, Taking Back Music, which began on July 4, 2011. The tour was supported by special guest Just Ginger.

Critical reception
Romo divided critics upon release, with many media outlets publishing glowing reviews for the record and others harshly criticizing it. The album currently holds a 65/100 rating on Metacritic, indicating positive to mixed reviews and marking a major improvement over the dismal critical performance of her previous album.

BBC Music referred to the album as "her darkest turn since Eve" and "an electropunk masterpiece". Spin Magazine praised the album, calling it "one of the most convincingly sinister pop albums recorded". Q Magazine said the album's musical direction "blurs the boundaries between the mainstream and the independent" and "fully suits the album's lyrics, among the most brutally honest of Romo's career". Allmusic gave a favorable review and named "Pandora Kills", "Music From Mars", "My Generation", and "Piccadilly Circus" as its "track picks".

Slant Magazine praised the album's left field approaches, such as juxtaposing Elice Claire and China's vocals with a dark percussion loop and choir on "My Generation", but felt it was not a true introduction to what Romo is really about, with Romo "favoring a relevance over honesty approach - the very same approach that maligned her last record". The Guardian gave the album three out of five stars, saying that although Romo's songwriting gives her an edge over the new crop of major acts, musically she does little to find a distance from them.

Pitchfork Media gave a negative review, but rated it a 4.1, a marked improvement over the infamous 0.0 given to POPSTAR 2. Its review stated that Romo "is caught between trying to be herself and taking on the persona of a Barbie doll" and consequently she "cannot rid herself of the contrived formulas that defined her alter egos". The review harshly criticized "Broken Silence", in which Romo plays the part of a girl who faces Belle Ball in a dream, as "continuing to fulfill the requirement that each one of her albums must contain a poorly plotted melodrama set to music".

Even the most critical reviews expressed praise for the appearances from Alesha and Midnight. A mixed review from Popmatters reads, "One of the few highlights of the album is the union between Romo and Alesha on 'Curtain Call', a song paying tribute to fallen idols. Alesha gives a moving, yet haunting performance that reminds us why she will be missed in the music industry." A mostly negative review from Drowned In Sound states, "Midnight provides one of the album's few saving graces with her guest vocals on 'The Devil's Icon', a song which clearly suits her hellish yet sensual style and shows why she will be a musical tour de force in the months to come."

Romo's industry peers have given Romo glowing praise, with Alesha, who contributed vocals and songwriting to the album, calling it the best of Romo's career. Alesha later covered the album track "Salt The Scars" during an appearance on BBC Radio 1's Live Lounge.

In the summer of 2011 was announced that Romo was one of the nominees for Best Album at Urapopstar Awards 20, marking the second time Romo was nominated for the coveted prize, following POPSTAR: The Life & Times Of Belle Ball, which was nominated at Urapopstar Awards 17 but lost to Alesha's Bigger Than God. This time, Romo was named the winner of the Best Album award; the win marked her third Urapopstar Awards win of her career, following the Best Promotion and Best Single awards for "Schizo Pop" at Urapopstar Awards 16.

Accusations of plagiarism
Several industry insiders accused Romo of releasing an experimental album only because her friend and colleague China was doing the same thing with her fourth album Resurrection, also citing the #1 successes of Luke Ramada's Decibel Wars and Putanovska's Putanovska's The Black Sea as reasons to go the experimental route to stay relevant and trendy.

At the same time, Romo was accused of plagiarizing several song ideas and musical arrangements from indie band FERROXYL, whose debut album Earth & Her Poisons was released two months prior to Romo. Adding fuel to the fire, both albums contain influences from experimental acts such as Crystal Castles, The Knife and Sleigh Bells.

Romo defends the album by saying it was conceived long before she heard of FERROXYL and before she learned of the concept of China's Resurrection.

Standard edition
Samples
 * "Music From Mars" samples elements from Kesha's "TiK ToK" and contains an interpolation of the Black Eyed Peas' "Boom Boom Pow".
 * "My Generation" contains lyrics from The Who's "My Generation".
 * "Piccadilly Circus" includes spoken-word dialogue from the television series Mad Men.
 * "Groupie Love" contains a sample of Sleigh Bells' "Kids" and an interpolation of Frightened Rabbit's "Keep Yourself Warm".
 * "Melancholia Melody" contains a sample of Crystal Castles' "Knights".

Chart performance
Romo debuted at #1 on the Urapopstar Top 40 Albums Charts on January 2, 2011, selling 95,911 copies in its first week. It marked Romo's second highest first-week sales for an album, selling slightly less than POPSTAR 2 in its first week, as well as her fourth consecutive #1 album and the first self-titled album to reach #1 since Esmeralda Dimuzio's 2004 self-titled debut album.

To date Romo has sold a total of 729,964 copies, enough to be certified double platinum.