Nilsson, Molly

Amateur is the 12th studio album by Molly Nilsson. Deep in the teeth of a career that threatens to tip into something resembling a “legacy,” Nilsson celebrates with an album recorded instinctively, quickly and bursting with so many moments of emotional brilliance and clarity it may be her greatest yet. Hers has been a career spent reaching out, perennially powerful in her earnestness, a warrior ridiculously defenceless and armed with a glittering sincerity. Shearing herself of the machinations of the music industry, recording at home, writing direct to the heart.

Amateur is a jubilee for losers. A treatise in thirteen songs, it states clearly that one should live their life with eternal curiosity, offering one an open hand of comradeship out of the rat race. The songs on the album are both some of the most personal of Nilsson’s career and the most anthemic. First single “How Much Is The World” asks to re-evaluate value in the face of a neoliberal system squeezing the life out of love. Pulsing opener “Die Cry Lie” satirizes the commercialisation of emotion in the form of a shout-along diss-track. With a pounding rhythm track held down by gorgeous chord changes, heartbreaker “Valhalla” carries the torch for the main themes of the album: never growing up, making mistakes with kindness, moving on.

There are moments on Amateur shrouded in reverb, slightly out of focus, forcing the listener to step deeper into the Mollyverse. Nilsson’s open-armed beseeching to the world permeates every beat, every chord. These are songs exploding with life: the chunky, aggressive bassline on the punker “Get A Life” can’t hide its massive, catchy chorus. The sweeping “Swedish Nightmare” might be a tongue-in-cheek self-reference, but at its heart it’s a song about the duality of living life large—what is a dream, what is a nightmare? Molly Nilsson says you can’t have one without the other, and why would you want to? Here’s to making mistakes.