L.A. based artist Bailey Bryan tracks joy, regret, longing and more across R&B, pop, and trap beats with her new EP Sensitive Bad Bitch Music Vol. 1. Each song exists in its own world, clearly defined and well-produced, and best of all, you can tell her heart’s in it.

“You know I need passion,” she sings on the disco-tinted R&B opener, “So close, but you keep lacking.” The same themes and sonic ideas come back on the funky and danceable “Iykyk”, where she sings of her high-luxury wants: “I just wanna pop Champagne on a date night / You can lick the plate if it taste right.” Bryan’s songwriting isn’t complicated or innovative, nor does it need to be — it gets the job done and gets the message across. Only on places like “Tragic” does it get in the zone of color-by-the-numbers, where she sings “It’s just tragic, tragic / This shit could be magic” on the chorus. “Upside Down”, too, is filled with mid-2010s pop clichés, but it’s often too catchy to be a major snag.

Sensitive Bad Bitch Music Vol. 1 doesn’t rewrite the game or extrapolate on its rules, but sometimes pop escapism is just what you need. Even when its influences are pronounced (SZA-esque interpretation of how to pronounce words on “Credits” and Dua Lipa disco-pop littering the tracklist), a real player in the feel-good pop field has emerged.

Order Sensitive Bad Bitch Music Vol. 1 by Bailey Bryan HERE