Rex Orange County’s fourth album, Who Cares, slouches casually in the middle of 2022’s pop scene like Martin Crane’s old La-Z-Boy chair in Frasier’s sleek apartment. It’s defiant in its saggy-soft comforts, snagged through with retro colours and just daring you to recline into its low-slung grooves.
Surrey-born Alex O’Connor studied percussion at the BRIT School before self-recording his 2016 debut album, bcos u will never b free, under his Rex Orange County moniker. Over a moochy blend of jazz, pop and hip hop, he delivered conversational lyrics about self-doubt, obsessive love and peer pressure. This caught the attention of US rapper Tyler, the Creator, who signed him up to collaborate on his 2017 album, Flower Boy. Each successive album won the sketchily bearded O’Connor more listeners: “I’ve been so lucky so far, it’s outrageous,” he sang on 2019’s Pony, which charted at No 3 in the US (No 5 in the UK).
