Album Review: Tinashe - 'Popstar'

Tinashe leans into experimental electronic terrain on her eighth studio album.

After more than a decade in the industry, Tinashe’s eighth studio album ‘Popstar’ – a record that heavily trades her signature R&B, pop, and hip-hop roots for a suite of hypnotic club rhythms and electronic elements – arrives as a resolute declaration: true pop stardom is defined by the weight of an artist’s persona, not by the genres they choose to play in.

With a total runtime of just under 40 minutes, ‘Popstar’ becomes the final instalment of her trilogy release and her first major-label backing since 2018. Spanning 16 songs, the album stands as a significantly longer body of work than its previous two counterparts, ‘Quantum Baby’ and ‘BB/ANG3L’. Yet, similar to its predecessors (setting aside the ‘Nasty’ Remixes Tinashe released during her viral peak in 2024) there are no features on the LP.

Breaking sharply away from her past material, the album opens with ‘Sunglasses’, a track co-produced by none other than electronic disruptor Arca, and it shows: A dreamy pad and granulated fragments that soon somewhat fall into order, clearing a path for Tinashe to establish “eyes straight forward I see tunnel vision” over the intercutting beat.

‘Too Easy’ continues to play within club-oriented spheres. While fairly short for a lead single and supercharged for Tinashe, the rollout strategy, in hindsight, doubled as a power move: the electropop production did not do the heavy-lifting, the lyrics did, with the ‘No Broke Boys’ singer doubling down on making her superstardom look easy. And given the overall sonic palette of the album, the track sits neatly in the sequencing, transitioning straight into ‘Melatonin’, an offering that pairs hyperpop instrumentals with an unexpected surge of acid house synths in its outro.

Then the album takes a deeper breath on ‘Empty Stadium’ and ‘Flashbacks’, on which the frantic production calms significantly, clearing the room for Tinashe’s silvery vocals to shine over softer backdrops. On the title track ‘Popstar’ and the ballad ‘I’d Rather Be Alone’, the singer briefly returns to her compelling R&B and pop blueprint.

‘Overdramatic’ – an interlude featuring a trumpet sequence – remains on the quieter side, while the 33-year-old repeats “already know I’m the baddest”. There is something about that superlative that weaves like a thread through the album: Tinashe knows what she brings to the table, whether in relationships, her personal life or the music business – an energy she powerfully re-establishes in the trap-infused ‘Crash Out’.

On tracks like ‘Nobody Wanna Dance Anymore’ and ‘Brainrot’, Tinashe keeps exploring hyper-digital territory with bubblegum basslines and robotic background vocals, before she sets off into ‘Heavy Weight’, the album closer and sole acoustic song. Over a softly plucked guitar, she pivots into a moment of vulnerability, refusing to let the burden of her responsibilities weigh her down.

Despite its emotionally laden outro, ‘Popstar’ is as playful and flirty as it is self-asserting. Tinashe makes it known that there is no singular formula for what makes a pop star, pushing her sound in new directions while standing firm on the identity she has spent years building.

4/5

‘Popstar’ is out now via A Nice Life Recording Company/Atlantic Records.

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