After a front-page drug arrest, a budding friendship with fellow pop rebel Miley Cyrus and two years of waiting, Sky Ferreira has released her debut LP, “Night Time, My Time,” which lives up to the hype in unexpected ways. With Ferreira and boyfriend Zachary Cole’s recent drug bust, “Night Time, My Time” could have been a mere exploitation of the drug-chic lifestyle. Instead, listeners find a bubblegum pop album with some bite.
Ferreira croons punk rock lyrics over a pop backbeat on songs about love, Japanese slang and tough-girl attitudes. While some songs drag on, anticipating a big moment that never comes, Ferreira’s debut album proves she has talent behind her headline-making lifestyle.
The album radiates ’90s grunge and the best of ’80s pop without feeling like a cheap knock-off or uninspired rehash. Ferreira effortlessly pays homage while simultaneously making her own signature sound. Her dreamy voice sounds like it was made to sing pop songs, and it often masks the grittiness of her tracks’ self-deprecating lyrics.
Ferreira opens herself up to the listener just to cut herself down. On “Nobody Asked Me (If I Was Okay)” Ferreira laments that people do not “seem to care if I’m feeling lost” and calls a lover out for being too self-involved. The album opener, “Boys,” is by far the catchiest song on the album, and it could easily be her biggest hit yet.
But despite her album’s blissful pop goodness, Ferreira struggles to maintain her spark. “24 Hours,” the weakest song on the album, sounds like it could play in the credits of a Disney Channel Original Movie. The song indulges in countless pop music clichés, as evidenced by her lyrics — “It’s slippin’ away/There’s nothing we can do/It’s slippin’ away/There’s no tomorrow without you.”
In a world where Cyrus is one of the hottest pop stars and the empty commodification of ’90s counterculture is running rampant, Ferreira is a breath of fresh air. At a glance, Ferreira may seem in line with this commodification — she is posing, affecting grunge for street cred. Stylistic quibbles aside, on “24 Hours,” when Ferreira tries on saccharine ’80s pop, she commits entirely. Her voice seems to ache with the longing of teenage years — the cheesy synths never feel like an ironic joke. “Night Time, My Time” was worth the wait and is poised to give Ferreira her well-deserved spotlight
A version of this article appeared in the Tuesday, Nov. 5 print edition. Mackenzie Brady is a contributing writer. Email her at [email protected].