Song Recommendation: “Worst Person In the World” by Jessica Winter (2025)

Jessica Winter drops an extremely ambitious debut album (appropriately titled My First Record) in which she throws down the 2020’s Pop Diva Icon gauntlet with a considerable amount of oomph. There’s lots of good stuff here but if you’re pressed for time, start with album centerpiece “Worst Person in the World,” which, to my ears, deserves a seat at the table with that oh-so hallowed music that can be best described as “degenerate party girl pop” (at the head of the table, of course, Brat-era Charli XCX). Mixing bits of sunny early 2010’s Lily Allen, high-powered bubblegum pop from vintage Kylie, touches of 80’s radio hits from Madonna with just a hint of high-flying Kate Bush experimentalism, Jessica Winter then gently turns up the dials marked “hyperpop” and “guitar heroism” and finally drops in weighty but still ethereal achingly ironic vocals to create one of the best songs of the year. I kind of can’t believe that Charli herself didn’t write the gobsmacking chorus: “so we should be together because it don’t get any better: I’m the worst person in the world.”