Although Ostarè is a relatively new artist to me, it is easy to fall for her pop charms. Why? Because, unlike a lot of what moves through the pop landscape, there is something deeper at work, something meaningful running below its easy and seductive grooves. For every dance beat and escapist urge captured within the music, there is a lyric that tells you that this isn’t just another throwaway pop song, that this isn’t just another pop wannabe riding a hollow and meaningless zeitgeist into either celebrity status or pop oblivion.
Musically, God Loves A Woman conforms to the pop rule book. It ticks the boxes for infectiousness, groove, addictiveness, accessibility, sonic fun and all the rest. But delve deeper into Ostarè’s world, and you will find some profound messages. Messages of female empowerment, equality, freedom, contentment with who you are, and not trying to live up to other people’s expectations. In short, God Loves A Woman is a declaration of independence, a revolutionary statement in a war for metaphysical self-rule!
But the best thing about this, and indeed all of Ostarè’s songs to date, is that it tackles such weighty and complex issues without making the song unapproachable. Usually, when the music industry tackles such grave and meaningful subject matter, it is the bastion of the earnest metal band who have stopped reading their Dungeons & Dragons rule books for a moment and picked up an academic tome about anarchy. Or a militant girl gang with low-slung guitars and a megaphone. Or, worst of all, a prog rock band out to prove their superior intellect. No thanks!
No, her approach is to wrap such enlightened thoughts and ideas in seductive, chilled dance grooves, the sort of sound that charms people gradually onto the dance floor so that eventually, there is a whole group of people moving to the sound of female emancipation in one united, almost shamanistic dance ritual aimed at evoking change. And long overdue change at that!
I’ve said it before, but it is always worth signing off with the same footnote. Ostarè makes pop music for an enlightened age. One built on a levelling of the playing field, respect for equality and championing individuals, female and male alike, for who they really are. And even though it seems that dark clouds seem to be gathering over society, the globe and humanity itself, it is songs such as this that act like a small guiding light to help us find our way through the shadows and out into the sunlight and fresh air of a better world to come.
