Courtesy of D.A.P. Limited.
In the past few years, Jessie J has lived publicly through events that would flatten most people. She told fans on her Instagram page she had suffered a miscarriage in November 2021 and wrote bluntly about how the grief still overwhelmed her nine months later. She details lying on the floor after the scan and feeling lonelier than ever, then choosing to perform anyway because she needed the distraction. Not long after, she was diagnosed with Ménière’s disease, and at the end of 2020, she was temporarily deaf and unable to walk in a straight line, had to stay silent, and admitted she had to put her voice on hold. The year after, she developed nodules and acid reflux that made singing painful, as doctors told her the nodules would return if she kept performing. She went public about her diagnosis of obsessive‑compulsive disorder and ADHD last year, saying motherhood exposed the conditions and that talking about them helped her feel less alone. Fast forward to the present, she publicly announced her breast cancer diagnosis, cancelled tour dates, and underwent surgery; she later told fans that the cancer was all gone, but she was still healing.
During all of this, she left Republic Records after seventeen years, explaining that being signed no longer felt right and that she wanted to release music on her own terms. Against that backdrop, a new Jessie J record is not just a “return.” It’s an artist refusing to be defined by catastrophes or by the industry’s narrative about her. That refusal shapes Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time. Instead of front‑loading big guest features or showy vocal runs, the album is built from blunt writing and personal confession. The central song, “No Secrets,” shows Jessie J’s decision to share her miscarriage and other traumas rather than let tabloids package them. She starts by recounting losing her baby and immediately having to perform: “I lost my baby/But the show must go on, right?/No if, ands or maybe/Can I cry for just one night?/I’m standing here naked, but I chose the spotlight.” The rhetorical question “Am I addicted to the honey?” hits as a genuine self‑interrogation: does she stay online because she wants to, because she wants to be seen, or because she’s been conditioned to perform transparency?
The first song, “Feel It on Me,” doesn’t bother with a commercial hook. It opens with the lines “Falling from my eyes/Have to heal this in the darkness, so turn off all the lights.” The chorus flips the common pop motif of someone carrying your love by complaining about how a partner’s unresolved mess spills back onto her: “It was okay when I could feel it on me/But it ain’t okay if you can feel it on me.” The dynamic is less about production than behaviour: verses linger over shame and co‑dependency, then the rhythm snaps into a stiff bounce when she recognises that she won’t be someone’s emotional sponge. “I Don’t Care” continues the theme of separation. She delivers a speech to anyone who’s been manipulated by gaslighters or abusers, toasting those who leave and warning any future aggressors not to “tease me with a good time.” It’s a bracing moment that refuses to sugarcoat pain. There is no attempt to make her story universal because she addresses them directly and raises a glass with survivors.
When she turns outward, the results range from striking to forgettable. “If I Save You” is an effective look at rescuing people at the cost of your own life. “Boundaries have come and gone/My empathy was strong, I was in the wrong, by doing too much,” she admits over a minimal groove, then asks, “Are you gon’ learn how to swim?/If I save you, I save you,” as if bargaining with herself. The chorus is wordy but purposeful, with scattered questions (“Do you, can you, will you, come through?”) that mimic the frantic inner voice of someone who can’t stop worrying about another person’s growth. The repeated line “We’re both keeping us down” is an elegant summary of codependent cycles. By contrast, “Believe in Magic / Joy,” an interlude, operates in airy platitudes about listening to Sade, being “tired of the detox, tired of the talking,” and seeing “all the little things that fix a broken heart.” It’s sweet but feels like a reprieve rather than essential writing. The “Joy” segment, a brief lullaby telling someone they are joy, doesn’t develop the idea beyond the line “I didn’t write this song for me.” As an emotional breather, it works, but its lyrics don’t carry the weight of the surrounding songs.
With the help of Jessie Boykins III (who seems never to get credit for his sleeper contributions), he helped co-write most of Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, the album’s grief songs are its strongest. “Comes in Waves” is startlingly direct about a pregnancy loss: “It comes in waves, like I’m drowning in a love I crave that you gave to me, and I hate/How much I miss the future that we never made.” Jessie J apologises to a child she never met and vows not to forget them. When she sings, “Next time you come to me I’ll make a place for you to stay,” it’s an arresting moment of hope and superstition. “I’ll Never Know Why” shifts from her own grief to that of losing someone else to mental illness or suicide. She confesses she never walked in their shoes and won’t pretend to understand, but still wonders, “How could you say goodbye without saying goodbye?” She casts herself as a flawed witness rather than a martyr. The song ends without resolution, reflecting the reality that some losses remain mysteries.
Produced by Ryan Tedder, “Complicated” is the album’s autobiographical linchpin. It takes the form of a timeline: she talks about singing loudly and insecurely in 2010, breaking up with a girlfriend in 2012 while the press dismissed it as “a phase,” being told she couldn’t have children in 2015, taking 2016 off to grieve, and meeting a Magic Mike (oops, Channing Tatum) in 2018. She also mentions a particularly cutting comment from a colleague: “Katy told me that they all hate me, that I do too much.” The songwriting here isn’t subtle, but it’s vivid. She names the years like chapter headings and collapses a decade of public embarrassment and private heartbreak into a couple of verses. The chorus (“Ooh, that’s life for you/A rollercoaster not everyone rides with you”) lands as a shrug rather than a big chorus, and it doesn’t have to be. The purpose isn’t catharsis so much as refusal to apologize for being “too much.”
Motherhood and love lighten the narrative. “Sonflower” is a cute corny pun on sunflower and son, but the writing is earnest: “I’m me when I’m with you/It’s everything you do/You keep me in my truth/I’m winning when I lose.” The track’s behaviour is unhurried, radiating contentment without the usual big‑note theatrics. “California,” a mid‑album pivot, is a hustler’s anthem about surviving the state’s ups and downs. She wants to be somebody, not the person who merely knows somebody; she sings about swaying palm trees, bills that won’t get paid by showbiz glamor, and dreams that “burn hotter than the fireplace.” It’s not profound, but it’s specific enough to feel lived‑in. “Living My Best Life” could have been trite, yet the writing is anchored by the acknowledgement that turning pain into “deeper love” is work: “You taught me how to turn it around and kiss away the fear/No looking down as long as I’m here.” The declaration, “No more tears, I’m not wasting time being sad tonight,” is a choice to take joy where she can. “H.A.P.P.Y” is essentially a children’s chant (“Laugh till I cry, dance, I know why, ‘cause I’m H‑A‑P‑P‑Y”), but she precedes it with the line “I can’t take it, tired of faking my smile,” hinting at the work behind the cheer. Still, the spelling‑out hook is simplistic and diminishes the track’s emotional potential.
Some records feel disposable. “Colourful” lists moods and slang like a mood board: “Happy, sad, sassy, mad/Bougie, angry /Shady, fast, stackin’ up this cash/Hangry, class, put your hands on my (ass).” The track leans on the “you are my sunshine / so I’ll be your rain” cliché, and repeating color names (“Blue, red, orange, yellow”) doesn’t add meaning. A similar thinness hampers “Threw It Away,” whose entire premise is summarized by its title. Jessie J recounts being welcomed to Los Angeles, being called “honey,” giving her heart, and having her love tossed aside; she makes a Beauty and the Beast joke and warns that karma will come for her. The lack of detail means the song could be about anyone. “For This Love” is at least vivid in its lust. “Drop to my knees for this love” and “Prove to my body you know what to do” make no attempt at coyness. The second verse tries to conjure a larger story—“Playing pretend in this lost happy home/Breaking all curses, how you haunt my soul”—but doesn’t develop beyond a string of romantic clichés. When she demands not to be teased with foreplay and wants the guilt and glory, the directness is refreshing, but the writing lacks the specificity that powers the album’s best songs.
The record ends with “The Award Goes To,” a song that flips the award‑show trope into a personal send‑off. Over an exiguous accompaniment, she sings, “I’ve been fighting my wars/But I’m weighing my words/I’m good to lose, the award goes to you.” The repeated “You, you, you” is delivered with a mix of exhaustion and sarcasm. The second verse clarifies that she’s giving the award to someone who felt her pain and then got in her way. It’s a formal declaration that she’s done performing for them. The song’s chorus is simply the word “You” repeated over and over, emphasizing her need to point a finger without embellishment. There’s humor too: after telling someone with a bruised ego that they’re through, she says she dares to breathe “not for you but for me.” Ending on this anticlimactic note is deliberate. She refuses to provide a rousing finale or moral. She’s handing the trophy off and walking away.
What materializes over the album’s sixteen tracks is a writer who has stopped trying to prove she can sing, where she knows she can and chooses to use that instrument to say things she once shied away from. The emotional core sits in the intersection of grief and resilience, giving voice to experiences many people carry quietly, while the rest charts the years of public scrutiny that led to this moment. Outside of so-so writing in certain tracks, when the writing is specific, the songs land with force. There’s snark too—naming the album after a warning to abusers is equal parts humor and threat. Jessie J may still crave applause, but she’s less interested in playing along with the narratives others have written about her. She’s releasing music on her own terms and talking plainly about the fallout of fame, illness, and loss.
Great (★★★★☆)
Favorite Track(s): “No Secrets,” “Comes in Waves,” “Complicated”
