Cara, Reyez and Cherry fine-tune the follow-up art

ALESSIA CARA “THE PAINS OF GROWING” (UNIVERSAL)

The pressure on any artist to follow up a wildly successful, out-of-the-blue debut album is inherent — especially if, like Brampton’s Alessia Cara, they also won a Grammy for best new artist (she became the first Canadian to do so).

In Cara’s case, there’s even more pressure, because so much of her debut — which featured hit songs like “Here” and “Scars to Your Beautiful” — dealt with teenage concerns, written with unusually acute detail that managed to be painfully accurate without being juvenile.

That debut was called “Know-It-All.”

It seemed like the 19year-old most certainly did.

Almost exactly three years later, Cara’s followup is pitch perfect. Fame hasn’t changed her outlook one bit, which isn’t surprising for someone whose first hit single, “Here,” was all about being the uncomfortable outsider at a party full of popular people.

Cara still captures the awkwardness of youth everywhere — sometimes for better (“Growing Pains,” “My Kind”) or worse (“It’s like a Nintendo game, but nobody wins”).

The only nod to her new-found status as a globe-trotting superstar is when she sings, “Home is wherever I live.”

Musically, she remains faithful to the production duo of Pop & Oak, who were central to the sound of the debut, and return for almost half the tracks here.

But she also taps a couple of pro hitmakers, like No I.D. (Jay-Z, Kanye West, Drake), Rick Nowels (Lana Del Rey, Lykke Li) and Canadian Jon Levine (Philosopher Kings, Serena Ryder, Buffy Sainte-Marie), some of whom indulge not only Cara’s big pop ambitions, but also her knack for Amy Winehouse-style retro-modern R&B (“Comfortable, “Out of Love”).

More important, Cara seizes the production reins herself on the solo guitar songs “I Don’t Want To” and “A Little More.”

Normally the Grammys are neither indicative nor predictive of anything, but naming Alessia Cara a “best new artist” is the best decision they’ve made since another Canadian artist, Arcade Fire, won best album in 2010. Stream: “Not Today,” “7 Days,” “A Little More”

JESSIE REYEZ “BEING HUMAN IN PUBLIC” EP (UNIVERSAL)

Jessie Reyez cannot be contained. Not by Toronto, not by Canada, not by genre of music.

Her talent is massive — so much so that on her limited recorded output so far, even her voice sounds just short of fully exploding, like it’s too big for any recording studio.

There was little she held back on her 2017 breakthrough EP, “Kiddo,” which featured the hit R&B ballad “Figures,” the explosive “Blue Ribbon,” and the #MeToo whistleblower “Gatekeeper.”

For its followup, however, Reyez seems to be purposely lowering expectations.

If this were her debut, it would be solid and promising. But because it comes on the heels of such an incendiary arrival, which blew away not just fans her own age but industry titans (she guests on the new Eminem album, and apparently Steven Tyler was dumbstruck after seeing her perform), the aptly titled “Being Human in Public” sounds like Reyez letting her legendary mane of hair down and killing some time before she drops a real bomb on the music industry.

Stream: “F-k Being Friends,” “Sola,” “Dear Yessie”

NENEH CHERRY “BROKEN POLITICS” (SMALLTOWN SUPERSOUND)

Neneh Cherry never played the music industry game: After her breakthrough debut album in 1988, she stepped out of the pop world and followed her muse.

That involved collaborating with Youssou N’Dour for an international hit, midwifing the debut album by Massive Attack, and then pretty much dropping out of the biz altogether until 2013, when she released the first of three albums — including this new one — that marked an incredible comeback.

“Broken Politics” is the second record she’s made with the equally eclectic Kieran Hebden of FourTet in the producer’s chair; the two make perfect partners — or, rather, Hebden fits in seamlessly with the 30-year creative partnership Cherry has maintained with her husband, Cameron McVey.

Their musical journey here begins with a jazzy snare beat accompanied by a lilting kora and syncopated, subtle electronic bass drum giving the whole thing a bounce; Cherry’s alluring, wisdom-of-ages vocals gently imploring, “Just because I’m down, don’t step all over me.”

The single “Kong” rides a deep reggae groove not unlike something from Massive Attack’s “Blue Lines”; naturally, it’s produced by that band’s Robert del Naja.

“Faster Than the Truth” draws from a similar well, except with Steve Gadd’s drum pattern nicked from Paul Simon’s “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover.” “Slow Release” is set primarily to just flutes and congas.

Much of the album delivers modern torch songs with a political bent that’s obvious yet never heavy-handed; occasionally the light touch is broken up with a club track like “Natural Skin Deep,” complete with air horns.

In short, “Broken Politics” pieces together everything that’s ever made Neneh Cherry such a compelling artist from day one.

Stream: “Fallen Leaves,” “Kong,” “Natural Skin Deep”