Fancy Some More? Say Less

By Alex Barnard

PinkPantheress’s success comes from her uniquely curated musical formula. Her skill for choosing gripping and diverse samples, present in early releases like ‘Attracted To You’ and ‘Pain,’ is paired with  highly stylised vocals which has made her music so recognisable. The influence of UK Garage and D&B in her music, and the brevity of many of her songs, often around a minute long, have also left listeners hungry for more, the perfect teaser method for her most ambitious project yet, Fancy That. 

The album was understandably met with a Brat-esque response, charting at No.3 upon release and being nominated for the Mercury Prize Album Of The Year 2025. Trends like the ‘Illegal’ handshake videos on TikTok have dominated the summer. Thus, it was only right for PinkPantheress to follow in Charli XCX’s tracks and collaborate with a huge array of artists on a new iteration, Fancy Some More?

The album was announced through an animated short where a cartoon PinkPantheress names the 23 featured artists on a whiteboard, who range widely in genre, reflective of the singer’s diverse influences. Half are pop artists, the other half more electronic-based, reflecting the marriage of the two in her music. In a playlist released shortly before the album, many of those featured were included as Pink’s idols, like, for example, Groove Armada and Basement Jaxx. Such musical figureheads collaborating with an artist who originated anonymously on SoundCloud is certainly emblematic of PinkPantheress’s huge relevance in modern popular music. 

Other featured artists hearken back to PinkPantheress’s 2000s aesthetic, namely Kylie Minogue and Sugababes. The latter feature is certainly the stronger of the two tracks. As is a theme in the entire album, while some songs are totally reimagined in the remix, others feature their guests only sparingly without diverting much from the original track, as in Minogue’s ‘Stateside.’ With both the Australian icon’s power for creating melodic floorfillers and the strength of the original, I was expecting more than a third of the song to feature her, although her signature vocal riffs and the sassy ‘never met an Aussie girl before’ at the end were definitely effective.

This is an album full of references – to, for example, the Rhythm Heaven videos using her tracks which populate the Internet, which are sampled in the DJ Caio Prince and Adame DJ version of ‘Stars’. Perhaps a more overt niche reference is the use of the demo version of Stateside in the remix version here with Zara Larsson. These are things which fans have obsessed over on social media, so their inclusion on the Remix album are emblematic of PinkPantheress’s engagement with her audience.

One standout, the remix of ‘Illegal’ with SEVENTEEN, doesn’t mess about too much with the central harmony and structure of the track, but enhances it with vibrant syncopated piano house chords. SEVENTEEN’s contribution is weaved into the whole track, rather than  feeling like an afterthought. 

‘Romeo’ with KILIMANJARO is perhaps one of the remixes that turns the original on its head the most. Overdriven vocals with a pounding countermelody blast off from the beginning of the track, with vocal chops heightening the tension in preparation for the chorus. Ravyn Lenae also offers a great contender for best ‘Romeo’ remix; her version with an ‘I Kissed a Girl’-esque backbeat, atmospheric string chords and a satisfying blend between the two artists’ voices. 

Another highlight is the totally flipped ‘Nice To Know You’ remix with Sega Bodega. A dreamy re-harmonisation with interesting key changes transforms the originally quite urgent-sounding track into a soulful farewell. ‘Illegal’ with Nia Archives fizzles with jungle influence, transporting the listener to the London rave scene.

When some of the remixes are clearly stronger than others in their originality, the structure of the album having often three iterations of the same song in a row does make these weaknesses apparent. ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’, certainly applies to much of this album. Strangely, some of the more familiar artists on the mixtape pale in their contributions in comparison to those less well-known. 

PinkPantheress has gone from a literal anonymous face on SoundCloud to collaborating with some of the artists she has been aiming to emulate since the beginning on a richly diverse 3-disc album. Largely, this huge collaborative undertaking pulses with life, unafraid to hop between genres and allow the guests to totally transform the original tracks or just leave a light touch. Whatever your personal preference, anyone who likes PinkPantheress’s music will find tracks that appeal in this mixtape because the guest artists are just so musically diverse. It’s camp, it’s energetic, and it feels British to its core. In fact, I fancy even more.