Jessie Ware ‎– What’s Your Pleasure?

There are some albums that proved transportive in 2020. What’s Your Pleasure, Jessie Ware’s gloriously decadent, disco-inspired fourth record, was one of them. Released at the height of the UK’s first lockdown, Ware’s fourth LP became an unexpected soundtrack to nights in, its melodramatic melodies and deep basslines offering a portal onto out-of-reach dance floors. Though she could never have seen that coming when she began writing it back in 2018, the London singer-songwriter (and successful podcaster and author) was already well aware of What’s Your Pleasure?’s escapist power.

This was an album that had pulled Ware out of a funk that left her considering quitting music. But she also knew it would be a one-off. “The next record won’t be What’s Your Pleasure? part two,” Ware says, “But I had all these songs that I was proud of but which were never going to be heard, because they didn’t fit into the next chapter. I just thought, ‘Everyone seems to be loving this, so let’s keep the party going.’”