Never Stop

Never Stop is the fifth studio album by British recording artist Shell Ruin, released on May 17, 2009 by Ensemble Entertainment. The album was released just eight months after Charm Offensive (2008) which saw Ruin adopt a more down-tempo alternative electronic sound. Ruin first spoke of the album in an interview with BlackBook magazine in early 2009, where Ruin said "It's been fun flirting with other genres, but I'm ready to put my popstar hat back on".

The album contains heavy influences of electro-pop and new wave music. Ruin spent months extensively studying albums released in the 1980s, primarily by British pop groups like The Human League, the Pet Shop Boys, Yazoo, Culture Club and Duran Duran. Ruin decided early on that she wanted to create "a juxtaposition between the 80s pop sound and Britain today". The album contains loosely politicised lyrics as well as themes of money, fame and love. Ruin was inspired by the writing style of The Clash, particularly their 1979 album London Calling. The album contains several songs named after popular 80s films, including The Breakfast Club (1985).

The album yielded a further three Top 5 singles in "Joy Division", "Riot Going On" and "Politics of Love" which all became signature songs in Ruin's back catalogue. "Politics of Love" in particular became a slow-burn success, with its themes of infidelity. Attitude magazine wrote "Shell becomes an honorary gay after her boyfriend cheated on her with another man". Never Stop was Ruin's most commercially successful and critically acclaimed album until the release of Play (2016), six years later. The album is considered to be the peak of Ruin's "imperial phase".

Background
The album contains heavy influences of electro-pop and new wave music. Ruin spent months extensively studying albums released in the 1980s, primarily by British pop groups like The Human League, the Pet Shop Boys, Yazoo, Culture Club and Duran Duran. Ruin decided early on that she wanted to create "a juxtaposition between the 80s pop sound and Britain today". The album contains loosely politicised lyrics as well as themes of money, fame and love. Ruin was inspired by the writing style of Chris Lowe and Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys, who often write in a quintessentially British manner. Ruin was also inspired by the writing style of The Clash, particularly their 1979 album London Calling.

Never Stop was preceded by "Love, Inc." which was released as the album's lead single in May 2009. The song was inspired by the Great Recession (or more commonly known as the recession of 2008). During a time when the Great British public were struggling financially, Ruin was interested in how this would influence music at the time which was often inspired by materialism and bravado. "Love, Inc." was a commercial success, becoming one of Ruin's signature songs and one of the most popular singles released in 2009. NME magazine wrote that "Ruin captured the zeitgeist with the fall of the economy, while releasing her most commercially viable album to date. The stars aligned for her become the nation's sweetheart - a millennial Working Class Hero."

The album yielded a further three Top 5 singles in "Joy Division", "Riot Going On" and "Politics of Love" which all became signature songs in Ruin's back catalogue. "Politics of Love" in particular became a slow-burn success, with its themes of infidelity. Attitude magazine wrote "Shell becomes an honoury gay after her boyfriend cheated on her with another man". The song became a commercial success accross during fall 2009 after being remixed by Jacques Lu Cont (otherwise known as Stuart Price) and used in a car commercial.

Never Stop was Ruin's most commercially successful and critically acclaimed album until the release of Play (2016), six years later. The album is considered to be the peak of Ruin's "imperial phase". In June 2009, Ruin announced the Shell Ruin: Live at Last! World Tour which would see the singer go on the road until 2010. In September of that year, Ruin co-hosted the 17th Urapopstar Awards with close friend Alesha. Following the ceremony, Ruin was reported to have been involved in a fatal car accident outside of the Earls Court theatre. Subsequently the tour was cancelled. Ruin was later found alive, ultimately leading to her fall from grace and a succession of commercial failures until her comeback in 2015.

In June 2009, Ruin announced the Shell Ruin: Live at Last! World Tour which would see the singer go on the road until 2010. In September of that year, Ruin co-hosted the 17th Urapopstar Awards with close friend Alesha. Following the ceremony, Ruin was reported to have been involved in a fatal car accident outside of the Earls Court theatre. Subsequently the tour was cancelled. Ruin was later found alive, ultimately leading to her fall from grace and a succession of commercial failures until her comeback in 2015.

Critical reception
Never Stop received generally positive reviews from most music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 87, based on 16 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews". Luke Turner of the NME raved that "Ruin has revitalised a forgotten form to make one of the finest forward-thinking British pop albums of recent memory." Steve Harris of Clash viewed the album as "[t]he ultimate expression of '80s love" and stated that "apart from a couple of later tracks, the album is far from filler and still delivers blow after blow of superb songcraft." Heather Phares of AllMusic opined that "Ruin's dedication to their aesthetic makes this an album where the songs are variations on a theme, and on the rare occasion where the songwriting isn't razor-sharp, the style threatens to overtake the substance. However, that devotion also makes Never Stop a standout, not just among the many other '80s revivalists, but the entire late-2000s pop landscape." Rolling Stone's Rob Sheffield commented, "Along with co-writer Alesha, Ruin is ruling the radio with splashy dance hits about sex and betrayal", highlighting "Politics of Love" as the album's "definitive gem".

Talia Kraines of BBC Music wrote, "Never Stop jam-packed with killer pop song after killer pop song." Slant Magazine reviewer Paul Schrodt described Ruin's sound as "frosty, uniquely British, deliberately affected, and anything but casual", but felt that "it's her attempts at vulnerability that make for the most insipid listens." Pitchfork Media's Joshua Love noted that "Ruin delivers icy but irresistible throwback pop that hearkens back explicitly to fellow femme-led Brits Yazoo and the Eurythmics." The Guardian's Alexis Petridis wrote, "The sound is authentically tinny, bass being something that most synthpop pioneers seemed to think the gleaming "Music of the Future" could do without. The rhythms tend to a clipped, funkless boom-crash that listeners of a certain vintage may find difficult to hear without picturing a school disco dancefloor packed with fourth-formers trying to 'do the robot'."Peter Paphides of The Times expressed, "For the almost militant purity of its execution though, Ruin inspires a peculiar sort of awe. Exclusively using keyboards is one thing, but the Brixton-based songstress has gone a step further, purging her sound of any keyboard noise that bears even a passing resemblance to what your Jeremy Clarkson sort of music fan would refer to as a 'real' instrument." Simon Price was critical of the album in his review for The Independent, stating that "[m]uch of the time, Ruin sounds strangely distorted, like the backing music from an early 1990s Sega Mega Drive game turned up to 11."

Track listing
All songs written and produced by Shell Ruin and Alesha.


 * 1) "Enfant Terrible"
 * 2) "Love, Inc"
 * 3) "Riot Going On"
 * 4) "Joy Divison"
 * 5) "True Romance"
 * 6) "Intolerable"
 * 7) "Politics of Love"
 * 8) "Breakfast Club"
 * 9) "Bear Honey"
 * 10) "Mud"
 * 11) "Palm of Your Hand"
 * 12) "Set in Stone"


 * Indonesian bonus tracks


 * 1) "My Robot Friend"


 * Notes
 * "Joy Division" contains a sample of "Don't You Want Me" by The Human League.
 * "Riot Going On" contains a sample of "Genius of Love" by Tom Tom Club.