The second album from Remi Wolf, ‘Big Ideas’ is a splattering of emotions and observations all collaged together to create a fascinatingly weird mood board.

Stream: ‘Big Ideas’ – Remi Wolf

How do we define a ‘big idea’?

Is it something that makes us feel proud? A revelation that changes how we behave? Something too ambitious, absurd? It could be a project that fulfills us or, on the contrary, a spontaneous decision or memory that haunts us.

Whatever your big ideas are, the latest album from American singer/songwriter Remi Wolf is a collection of reflections and life lessons recounted with a touch of humour.

I can be yellow, I can be orange by the afternoon
And I’m purple, so quick when I switch it up
Hurtful to mellow
I can be anything I wanted to,
any color of the rainbow
Yeah, me and the boys in the hotel lobby

Low tide, moon’s so bright
Moving my hips from left to right
My, my, check my phone
Feel it in my belly when
you’re driving home like

Like Cinderella making babies
on the company’s dime
We’re making pennies out of paper,
better find a new slime

– “Cinderella,” Remi Wolf

Big Ideas (released July 12 via Island Records) is a splattering of emotions and observations all collaged together to create a fascinatingly weird mood board. There is sex, wild and spontaneous, that takes place in hotels. For example in “Toro” (‘We’re waking up the people down the hall/ You’re a bull and I can’t help but saying, “Toro, toro”/ And when they buzz me for the lobby call/ I don’t show ’cause I’m too busy saying, “Toro, toro”’) and “Cinderella” (‘Like Cinderella making babies on the company’s dime/ We’re making pennies out of paper, better find a new slime/ Me and the boys in the hotel lobby’). In the latter, a whirlwind of emotions is experienced and Wolf takes on the role as her own fairy godmother to try and find the balance. 

The ‘big ideas’ explored throughout the album are often those linked to luxury and a fast-paced social life.

‘The walls are closin’ in on me in this Art Deco museum‘ she observes at the start of “Alone in Miami” before recounting ‘Met up with maine/ Bought cocaine/ Clothes in the lobby waiting for me/ And I’m on the list with that girl I kissed/ We’re on the rocks, but now we’re okay’ in the second verse, the words trailing with an air of boredom.

In “Wave,” she expresses her uneasiness regarding long-distance relationships and how the materialist aspect of gifts should be replaced by the physical presence of her loved one. The groove that opens the song augments into pop punk energy, Wolf shouting ‘I’ll ride this like a wave/ I’ll ride this all the way to shore‘ over the crashing of synth-style drums. 

I’ll ride this like a wave
I’ll ride this all the way to shore
Don’t know how to behave
When my little love ain’t at my door
When all that’s filling the spaces
Are cheap beers and anxious silences
All I can do is try to ride

– “Wave,” Remi Wolf

While retro grooves and an upbeat cheekiness fuel Remi Wolf’s debut album Juno, released in 2021, Big Ideas is sonically more varied. “Soup,” for example, is dreamy synth pop, melancholy wrapped in the optimism of a starry sky, and “Motorcycle” is slow-paced and psychedelic. In the song, the artist emphasizes the contradiction between wanting to settle down and continue to live a life of independence and freedom, realizing a fantasy of the ‘Secret lives of the wives of Harley Davidson.’ With the trailing twangs of guitar, we have the impression of riding off into the sunset, the head filled with fantasies.

“Cherries & Cream” is also psychedelic in sound, tapping into a 1970s hippy rock vibe and posing questions such as ‘Is it wrong?/ Are you fearful?/ Do you regret?/ Be careful/ If she’s perfect, what are you here for?’ “Kangaroo,” like “Wave,” is fuelled by a pop punk energy while the lyrics are shouted with a rawness in the sound. ‘Call it an itch, been waiting for this/ I’m good at plaguing you with my big ideas/ My big ideas/ I’m talkin’ my big ideas’ goes the pre-chorus, bringing in the theme of the album.

Other ‘big ideas’ include those induced by alcohol which seem great at the time (“Pitiful”) and the souvenirs of adolescence, which seems to be the case in the slow, gently grungy “When I Thought of You” (‘Shawn is in the yard/ Sophie’s in the bathroom/ Connor’s going crazy up there/ Bouncing off the bedroom walls/ I just met a bully/ I think he’s kind of cute’).

I’ve got dry cracks on my snout
I don’t feel so healthy
when I think of you now
My skin’s like a Malibu couch, dried out
Saltwater dripping
From my nose to my mouth

And if you see me around
Can you seem a little down?
I know it’s evil to say
I wish you well
But I don’t want you to be okay

– “Frog Rock,” Remi Wolf

Keeping the playful qualities that are so typically Remi Wolf, “Frog Rock” compares unrequited heartbreak to frogs, as though we’re hopping through the swamp-like ambiance of life: soggy (with tears), unrestrained (outcomes) and natural.

Big Ideas ends with the stripped-back and light-heartedly folky “Just the Start,” in which Wolf examines contradictions with a pessimistic smirk. ‘No I don’t wanna party but I don’t really wanna work/ Either way I will be lonely either way I’m cursed/ And maybe somewhere in the middle is actually worse/ Don’t catch me,’ she sings in the fourth verse, her lyrics flowing rawly over plucks of acoustic guitar. 

As a second album, Big Ideas introduces new sounds and approaches that expand the style of Remi Wolf. It’s like the start of an adventure to come, and we’d be fools to not jump along for the ride.

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 © Ragan Henderson

Big Ideas

an album by Remi Wolf