Romo (2020 album)

Romo (also promoted as Romo (II) and Romo (2020)) is the second self-titled album and fifth studio album by British musician Romo. The album was surprise released on September 8, 2020 via digital and streaming outlets and released physically on September 25, 2020, along with its first single, "Feminis†". It was released nearly 10 years after the first self-titled album, a widely acclaimed work that won the Urapopstar Award for Best Album, and coming after a long period of abandoned studio projects including the anthology The Canal Street Chronicles, a companion piece to the first self-titled album called Emotional Pornography, and a planned third installment of the POPSTAR saga for which two songs were officially released as singles but the rest of the album was lost in a hard drive failure.

Like Romo (2010), Romo (II) is a stylistic departure from her previous work that builds on high ambitious concepts and eclectic influences. The album took strong influence from progressive rock and contains several tracks that take on the form of multi-part suites that stretch past the six-minute mark. The album consists of only seven songs, though they range in length from five to 11 minutes. Romo has said she had always wanted to do an album where every song was as complex as "Music From Mars", the five-part suite released as the first single from Romo.

Romo (II) received universal critical acclaim upon its release, with some reviewers lauding it as a "cultural reset". Many reviewers cited the album's final two songs, "Diamond Venom" and "The Empire", as among the best songs of 2020 and of Romo's career. The universal acclaim and widespread discussion about the album among industry peers propelled the album to #1 with an opening sales week of 105,605 copies, at the time a career best first week on the album charts.

Background
During the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, Romo sank into a depression from loneliness, isolation and feeling prejudiced against by the entertainment industry and men she attempted to date because of her being a woman in her mid-30s. Romo began writing about how she was feeling, also tapping into frustrations about how she and her peers felt tethered and resigned to global politics that favor the ultra-rich, the ineptitude of US President Donald Trump, and the racist and anti-immigrant sentiment she had seen in the UK with Brexit and the US with countless police-involved killings of Black people. Romo decided to tap into her feelings of hopelessness for a series of new multi-part musical suites that would build upon her work on her previous epic songs "Funeral" and "Music From Mars".

Songs
Romo (II) contains seven songs spanning 52 minutes. All but two, "Miserati" and "The Castration Of Rock & Roll", are multi-part song suites that shift in musical direction but are interconnected by theme.

The opening track and lead single, "Feminis†", is a four-part suite concerning the commercialization of feminism during the 2010s. Romo said she wrote the song over a years-long period and it took root from how Romo saw feminist messages of entertainers like Beyonce being exploited for commercial gain. Asked about the song, Romo said, "I obviously am a feminist. Women are as commanding of respect and authority as men can be, and should be treated as worthy of that respect and authority. And as much as I support feminism, the mass marketing of the cause is ludicrous. Owning a canvas print on your wall that reads 'I woke up like this' does not automatically make you a feminist." "Feminis†" took musical and lyrical inspiration from Beyonce's self titled and Lemonade albums, Carly Rae Jepsen, Charli XCX, "Sicko Mode" by Travis Scott, and Romo's previous material, namely her previous epic songs "Funeral" and "Music From Mars". The song is a four part suite that includes an instrumental intro played on the pipe organ and three musically distinct but lyrically connected vocal sections. In the third part of the song, a choir performs the hook "I am Feminist Christ", in a structure and cadence mirroring the Carl Orff composition "O Fortuna". Romo previously referenced "O Fortuna" in the composition of "My Generation" from her previous album, Romo.

At just under five minutes, "Miserati" is the shortest song on the album. "Miserati" is based upon a dramatic, apocalyptic musical backdrop set to lyrics about a narrator's longing for companionship and physical intimacy that goes unreturned, questioning if true love is within reach in her time.

The third song and second single, "Madame Bullshit", starts out as a fast paced electronic song with pop punk inspired vocals, which Romo said takes influence from 100 Gecs, until transitioning in the second section to an acoustic folk song that builds up with more instruments coming in, forming a coda where the only vocals heard are Romo belting out the word "Bullshit!" multiple times. The chaotic soundscape in the first section immediately transitioning to a mellow and melodic coda was believed to be inspired by the metalcore band Iwrestledabearonce. The lyrics paint an unsympathetic portrait of a woman who is uncaring of the general public, with speculation that the song was written about Margaret Thatcher and/or Theresa May, who both served as prime ministers of the United Kingdom, though Romo has confirmed the song is a composite sketch inspired by multiple figures in her personal life, politics and entertainment, and not specifically about any one person.

"Turned Ugly" was written as a sequel to the Alesha song "The Pretty Ones" (2009), which Romo featured on along with China and Emily Henning. Alesha, China and Henning join Romo on "Turned Ugly", though uncredited. The nine-minute song has four sections, with Romo, Alesha and China handling verses in the first three and Henning singing the closing outro in the fourth. Romo's lyrics in the song were inspired by the personal lives of the artists' respective PRs, including her own. She also incorporated lyrics from an unreleased track intended for the unreleased POPSTAR 3 called "The Artist And The Actress" into the song. While "The Pretty Ones" dealt with the four singers' fame and success, "Turned Ugly" is about how aging leaves people vulnerable to loneliness and rejection when their peers settle down to start families and their contemporaries are uninterested in meaningfully connecting with them because they are older. The song is Romo's fourth collaboration with Alesha, following "The Pretty Ones", the SAVE URAPS charity single "Play The Game" and the Romo track "Curtain Call". It's Romo's eighth collaboration with China, following "The Pretty Ones", "Play The Game", "Schizo Pop" (which featured an uncredited appearance from China on the hook), the remixes of Romo's POPSTAR 1 track "Belle Ball" and China's Censor My Ambitions track "Covergirl", the Romo track "My Generation" (which also featured Elice Claire) and "Spontaneous Combustion" (which also featured China uncredited). It's her second collaboration with Henning, following "The Pretty Ones". "Turned Ugly" contains lyrical callbacks to Alesha's "The OH in Ohio" in the second section and "Belle Ball" in the third section. The third verse also contains references to punk rock bands Alkaline Trio and the Gaslight Anthem.

"Diamond Venom" is a six-part epic song condemning U.S. President Donald Trump, right-wing politicians, authoritarianism and imperialism, which also contains lyrics about the 2020 coronavirus pandemic and the QAnon conspiracy theory. Romo also attacks modern musicians for not creating meaningful music that speaks to tumultuous times in "The Castration Of Rock & Roll", which alludes to Trump in the line, "Now we're too spineless to ruffle the orange feathers."

The closing track, "The Empire", derives its name from the vanity label Romo founded after leaving Saturdays Records midway through the promotion of Romo. "The Empire" is a sprawling and ambitious song that includes lyrics about Romo's birth, her career beginnings, and how a vision of the end of the world sparked her to build a relic that would stand for all time through her music.

Critical
Romo (II) received universal critical acclaim upon its release. The album currently holds an 87/100 rating on Metacritic based on 12 reviews, indicating generally favorable reviews and giving Romo the best contemporary reviews of her career.

The general consensus among reviewers is that Romo effectively used her nine-year hiatus from the music industry to build up massive anticipation for her next project and used time to her advantage to craft a bold musical statement with innovative sounds, styles and song structures - including the risky decision to release seven songs, including multiple multi-part suites, as opposed to a bloated album designed to generate streaming equivalent units - with devastating lyrics concerning the human condition, nationalist politics, the coronavirus pandemic, and Romo's own legacy. In contrast with reviews for Romo's previous albums, a number of reviews said Romo (II) contained no weak songs. Some reviewers went as far as to consider Romo (II) a "cultural reset" that will redefine pop culture in the 2020s.

Initial reviews cited the lead single "Feminis†", "Madame Bullshit" and "Turned Ugly" as the album's highlights. But later analyses from industry publications gave their highest praise to the 11-minute, six-part epic "Diamond Venom" and the seven-minute, two-part, cinematic origin story "The Empire", with some considering the songs among the best of 2020 and of Romo's career.

Romo (II) was widely discussed in the weeks following its release among Romo's industry peers, who gave the album overwhelmingly high praise. Shell Ruin declared the album "a paradigm shift". Alesha declared her artistry "canceled" after first hearing the album's closer, "The Empire", and later was quoted in an interview as saying, "There's a beautiful chaos to it, it's truly a marvel to behold." Emily Henning, who appeared in an uncredited role on "Turned Ugly", appealed for the song to be released as a single.

Commercial
Romo (II) debuted at #1 on the Urapopstar Top 40 Albums Chart on October 2, 2020, becoming Romo's fifth consecutive album to debut at #1. Its first week sales of 105,605 copies marked Romo's biggest first week album sales of her career, surpassing the opening week of POPSTAR 2: Belle After Death in 2009. Romo would set a new high mark just five months later when her second surprise released album within that period, Tambora, opened with 121,709 copies.

As of February 4, 2021, Romo (II) has sold 728,159 copies, enough to be certified gold.

Track listing
All songs written and produced by Jenna Romo.

1. "Feminis†" 2. "Miserati" 3. "Madame Bullshit" 4. "The Castration Of Rock & Roll" 5. "Turned Ugly" 6. "Diamond Venom" 7. "The Empire"

Credits
 * "Turned Ugly" features uncredited vocals from Alesha, China and Emily Henning.