A review of Suki Waterhouse’s ‘Memoir of a Sparklemuffin’

Last updated: 2024/10/02 at 6:42 PM

Great day for the sad-girl fans, however it might not be universally loved.

Released on September 13th, Suki Waterhouse’s sophomore indie pop album boasts a track list of 18 songs, opening with ‘Gateway Drug’ and closing with the melancholic, hopeful ‘To Love’. Waterhouse released her first album ‘I Can’t Let Go’ in 2022, with her appearing as Karen Sirko in the Emmy-nominated Amazon Prime adaption of the book ‘Daisy Jones and The Six’ in 2023, portraying a keyboardist in the band alongside actors Riley Keough and Sam Claflin. Waterhouse also recently opened for Taylor Swift’s ‘The Eras Tour’, appearing with fellow openers Paramore, Sabrina Carpenter and Gracie Abrams, performing her hit songs ‘Moves’, ‘Good Looking’, ‘My Fun’ and ‘To Love’ off both her albums. Waterhouse appeared on the cover of Vogue last month – Summer of Love – describing her life since she had a daughter with fiancé Robert Pattinson, and training postpartum for her upcoming tour and festivals, such as Coachella and Lollapalooza.

Singles ‘My Fun’ and ‘OMG’ quickly became my favourites on the album, which tells the story of how she felt lost in the entertainment industry (Waterhouse became a model at 16) and how she was taken advantage of until she learned her worth. The album tells a story of unhealthy, gritty relationships and her mourning her lost girlhood until she closes with ‘To Love’ and how her long-term relationship with Pattinson saved her, exchanging her trademark sad-girl heartbreak persona with the warmer, optimistic and romantic single – ‘I thought I’d never get to feel another f*cking feeling / But I feel / This love, this love… / Oh how lucky we are.’

The album is named after the Australian peacock sparkle-muffin spider, which she discovered during a late-night doom scroll and described to the Associated Press as colourful, cute and dancing, ultimately leading to her feeling akin to and naming the album after it. The album is a mix of reflection, yearning and finally hopeful indifference with the song ‘Model, Actress, Whatever’, which is how she describes herself self-deprecatingly, especially in the music video where she plays into the societal stereotypes of both roles with humorous apathy.

The single ‘OMG’ is possibly the most interesting song on the album, detailing a toxic relationship with an unknown person. She sings ‘You and I are not the same, you always had it easy / Oh, my God, take me back the way that I was’, describing the jealousy she has towards her partner and the differences between genders in the industry, and how she was made to feel sleazy for being with her more successful partner, begging to return to how she was before this toxicity, and mourning her innocence and girlhood – ‘Oh, my God, take me back the way that I was / The way that I was.’ Speculation has been made as to who this person was, including Bradley Cooper who she dated when she was 21 and he was 38 for two years, but Waterhouse hasn’t alluded to any rumours.

Ultimately, I love this album. Waterhouse teased it for months, releasing 7 singles before the album’s official release. Unfortunately, it lost some hype, but it is still one of the most successful albums of 2024, especially in its genre. Following her opening for Taylor Swift, Waterhouse revealed that she is already recording for her next drop, including some more upbeat and optimistic songs since the success of ‘My Fun’, which I am incredibly excited about.

Tracklist: