Pony by Rex Orange County

Pony, Rex Orange County's third album and his major-label debut, landed on 25 October 2019, the moment Alexander O'Connor, the Grayshott, England kid who taught himself to produce at 16, had to prove the buzz was about more than a Tyler, the Creator collaboration. He wrote all ten songs and produced them with Ben Baptie, cutting most of it at Strongroom Studios in East London and taking the orchestral parts to Air Studios.

It's a bright, busy record, bedroom-pop melodies dressed up in orchestral finery, but the words are where he bleeds: human emotion and the personal struggles that came with his sudden rise in 2017 and 2018. "10/10", "Pluto Projector" and "Face to Face" were the singles. Critics liked it while arguing over the lyrics, and it debuted at number 3 on the Billboard 200, his first time on that chart, and went top ten in Canada and the UK.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.