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Jessie Ware had a straightforward goal with her new album That! Feels Good! (released April 28) – “The goal was to make people dance and make them feel sexy and romantic,” the pop singer-songwriter tells the Billboard Pop Shop Podcast (listen to her full interview, below).
The new 10-track set, with production by Stuart Price and longtime collaborator James Ford, is a “delicious disco opus” and follows her warmly received 2020 album What’s Your Pleasure. The latter marked her highest-charting effort on the Official U.K. Albums chart (peaking at No. 3) and garnered Ware her first BRIT Award nomination for British album of the year.

“I wanted [the new album] to feel more live than What’s Your Pleasure?,” Ware continues, “but I still wanted there to be groove, and funk and soul dictating it – and elements of disco, of course. But to feel like a dance record, but a looser dance record, with a bit more color. That was the intention.”

So what’s changed for Ware in the nearly three years between What’s Your Pleasure? and That! Feels Good!? “I feel really centered and excited about putting music out,” she says. “I don’t kind of have that fear like I had before. What else has changed? The podcast [her hit show Table Manners, co-hosted with her mother Lennie Ware] has carried on. I’ve got another baby… I don’t know! I feel like a changed artist since the reception of What’s Your Pleasure?”

Ware will take That! Feels Good! on the road in the United States later this year, with a string of dates beginning in Chicago on Oct. 5. Before that, she’ll play the OUTLOUD @ WeHo Pride festival on June 2 in West Hollywood, Calif. in celebration of Pride Month.

Also on the new edition of the Pop Shop Podcast, we’ve got chart news on how Morgan Wallen continues to lead the Billboard 200 albums chart for an eighth week with One Thing at a Time, how Taylor Swift makes a splash on the list with a stunning 10 albums in the top 100 of the chart, and how for the first time ever, there are two regional Mexican songs in the top five (and 10!) of the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart.

The Billboard Pop Shop Podcast is your one-stop shop for all things pop on Billboard‘s weekly charts. You can always count on a lively discussion about the latest pop news, fun chart stats and stories, new music, and guest interviews with music stars and folks from the world of pop. Casual pop fans and chart junkies can hear Billboard‘s executive digital director, West Coast, Katie Atkinson and Billboard’s managing director, charts and data operations, Keith Caulfield every week on the podcast, which can be streamed on Billboard.com or downloaded in Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast provider. (Click here to listen to the previous edition of the show on Billboard.com.)