The title-track “Algorithm” tackles our screen-obsessed culture and the addictive draw of falling deeper into the doom scroll. A proggy cut of electronic pop that pulses with playful synths, the middle eight breaks down the big picture absurdity into cool, almost AI-like spoken word. “There's a lot of sense of humor in this album,” says Imbruglia. “The whole social media kind of the world that we're living in, I think it's just important for us to remember that you can't just blame the phone. You don't have to have the phone in the room. You can change the algorithm on the phone. You can learn how to change the settings. But you know, there's this sick, twisted like, I just let it take me wherever it wants to take me. But it is a choice.”
Across the myriad topics Imbruglia explores over the record, from breakups to destructive behaviour, the core theme that ties everything together is mental health. She chose “Algorithm” as the title track to help bring it all together. “‘Algorithm’ is my favorite song on the album and I just think it opens the whole conversation about mental health and also the times and what we're dealing with,” she says. “I still don't know how to change my algorithm, so I'm a victim, I am the problem, but it's like, I just follow it down rabbit holes. I also wanted to speak on this issue, like, we all need to be responsible for the fact that we're not being taken over. We're also choosing to be taken over. You can actually say, "I'm not interested in that.”
On “Endgame” she questions the cycle of work and the importance we place on careers. Another collaboration with Pillai and Sneddon, it has a glossy 90s pop punch to match its thematic discontent. “We tell ourselves that we're on the hamster wheel for good reason. It's like, I'm providing for my child, I'm trying. All these reasons at the expense of what?” she says. “I went out for a cigarette, and I came back in. I'm like, ‘Guys, what's the end game?’ If you forget to look up and you forget to be in the present moment, what is the point of life? How far are you going to take it? How far are you going to push your mental health? At what point are you going to recognise that all that's really real is now in this present moment? It's to do with mental health. It's like, we'll push ourselves and tell ourselves there's a good reason, and they're all valid reasons, but at the expense of what?”
Another constant on the album is the way that Imbruglia balances the big, darker topics she tackles with colourful, uplifting production. Collaborating with production duo MyRiot on the glistening sad banger “Just Drive” she narrates a painful breakup over a throbbing “Dancing On My Own” bassline. “That's my little Robyn-esque, isn't it?” she laughs. “You hit a point in your life, example perimenopause, and you're having to break up with someone because it's bad enough going through it, but watching you watch me go through it… that was my experience. It can be a loving thing to do, but that's not necessarily how it's going to be received. That's probably the most honest, raw song on the album.”
The Robyn comparison also holds true in the way Imbruglia manages to tell a story which feels both deeply personal and yet easily relatable. “I think a lot of artists really value the experience of the listener above the ego. There's that thing of like, wanting people to know what something's about, but not wanting to take the joy of them making it their own,” she says. “I always struggle with how much do you share? I think broad strokes - becoming a mother, mental health. You can talk about it, but when it gets to real specifics, I don't want you to be listening to my song and thinking about what I told you it was about for me.”
Closing out the record with "Beautiful Love”, a heartswell of optimistic romanticism and firework melody, it feels like an intentional conclusion to the journey of . “Absolutely, that's why it's at the end because for me in my brain you can't put that before the other bits because it's in chronological order in my head,” she says. “But also, the songs decide the track listing. I had two songs I wanted on the album that aren’t on the album, and so it's a case of listening and what goes into the next one. I'm like shit, and I bump it down, and then I'm like, that song doesn't fit on the album, and then I have to mourn the loss of that track, that it's not on there. They have their own energy and they kind of decide as well. And also, I do have a thing about eleven tracks. Bono always said to me, ‘Eleven tracks.’ So that's in my head… Just pick that name up off the floor.”