Fresh from her double win at the Swedish Grammis, Sarah Klang returns with her fifth album Beautiful Woman: a record that charts the fraught journey from girlhood to womanhood, unpacking the impossible expectations women face.
Klang describes the LP as an “expansive exploration”, but it’s the raw, intimate details that give Beautiful Woman its emotional weight. In an age of preventative Botox and Ozempic, Klang reminds us that the beauty standards from the days of heroin chic still linger, just dressed in new packaging.
The title track sets the tone, with Klang recalling how mainstream culture shaped her earliest ideas of self-worth: “I bought a magazine / Staring at the beautiful pictures / It was my sexual awakening / 15 and alone in my room / I did sit-ups at night / 200 and then another round.” The excitement of sexual discovery is laced with self-scrutiny and shame, as the pressure to be desirable overtakes the joy of personal exploration. For Klang – and many women – the line between self-love and societal approval has always been blurred.
Even sex appeal comes with contradictions. “Don’t be bad, don’t be boring”, Klang sings, highlighting the impossible tightrope women walk between being desirable and ‘respectable’. Musically, the eponymous track builds with a nostalgic, almost innocent energy, reminiscent of early Adele. But innocence quickly fades in the swelling chant: “When I grow up, I want to be a beautiful woman” – a mantra instilled in her long before she could understand what beauty meant to her.
‘Other Girls’ sees Klang confronting the late ’90s and early 2000s pop culture that shaped her ideals of femininity, quoting Kate Moss’s infamous words [since retracted by the model] which promoted foregoing meals in pursuit of thinness. “And nothing makes you happier than being pretty on MTV and VH1,” Sarah adds, her voice heavy with the desire to meet beauty standards. Klang captures the quiet, universal pressures of growing up under the glow of Tumblr filters and Instagram feeds, endlessly scrolling and wondering: what really makes a beautiful woman?
Beautiful Woman isn’t just about looking back, it’s about what can be passed on. On ‘Happier’, a tender meditation on motherhood, Klang reflects on how far she’s come and the hope that her daughter won’t face the same struggles; documenting a fear that history can repeat itself whilst resolving to be a confidant for her own child in a way that the preceding generation weren’t equipped to be.
Threaded with moments of solidarity and survival, Beautiful Woman celebrates the resilience of womanhood, which is underscored by a deep sense of unity. “I think, as women, we have a shared solidarity and shared experience that a lot of men absolutely don’t have,” Sarah Klang has said of the album’s themes. “We face the patriarchy daily and because of that, we have a language that is ours. We only have to look at each other to know.”
