i always have to preempt this with āyeah sheās unbearable in the most minute and therefore most infuriating ways and someone who i Do Not Fuck With broadly, butā but this record does fully whip. do it with a rock star threatens to fall apart with every lurch and trout heart replicaās gorgeous. feels like records that werenāt predictive of post-2013 big indie have been lost in the shuffle, but so it goes.
i ended up coming back to this one after grumbling out of of the side of my mouth over chappell roan for the last little bit. iām pulling for her because she seems talented and sincere, and as a queer midwestern former theater kid myself sheās basically lesbian al gaib, but for me right now sheās held back because her whole ~thing still feels a little embryonic. sheās in that early marina + the diamonds space where sheās still figuring out how all the pieces fit together and can āt help but be a little more obvious and boring as a result. iād love to see her go full camp, let the music match the aesthetic.
and, as it goes online, my beef is more with the fans. people roast folks for falling for a half-dozen āfirst openly gay disney characterā plays, but donāt want to see lucy holding the football with the āfuture of queer popā girlies. the chappel stans annoy me, in other words. but then i remind myself they probably didnāt have a teen+college dresden dolls/amanda palmer phase, so we all get the loud gay shit we deserve