(Photo Manipulation by Oli Turner)
Do you recognize that feeling if you get up after a sweaty nap and can’t keep in mind if what your thoughts performed for you was a dream or a nightmare? I’m positive Doja Cat is aware of that feeling. Her new album tows the road between dreamscape and nightmare gasoline in every monitor, all whereas reinforcing how little regard the artist has for her haters — and possibly additionally her followers.
“Scarlet” is the fourth album from the singer, rapper, pop star and vogue icon Doja Cat. It strikes a remarkably totally different tone than previous hits like “Kiss Me More” (2021) and “Woman” (2021), marking a brand new period in her profession. The album leans rather more into the sound and pacing of rap and R&B music. This doesn’t come as an entire shock, contemplating Doja Cat herself described her previous albums in a tweet earlier this yr as “cash-grabs” crammed with mediocre, corny pop. While not an enormous shock from the frequently controversial, chronically online, absurdist humor-leaning and really honest pop star, her public remark set the stage for an thrilling style shift in her discography. In the R&B-toned tune “Love Life,” Doja Cat says herself, “I love it when my fans’ love change / that’s how we change the game.” This is mere conjecture, however within the vein of skirting common music, the third tune within the album “Wet Vagina” looks like Doja Cat’s horror rap-pop reply to the chart-topping 2020 tune “WAP” by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion.
The rapper first hinted at this featureless album with the discharge of the only “Attention” in June. The tune, and its corresponding music video, launched Doja Cat’s titular alter-ego “Scarlet.” The title probably got here from her iconic thin-layer-of-blood outfit, as featured in each the music video and her VMA’s performance. Such embrace of probably terrifying, but empowering, motifs is obvious within the album’s tune titles, like “Demons” and “Skull and Bones.” The imagery of blood, demons and spiders sprinkled within the music movies, lyrics and a slightly-controversial album cover all reinforce this aesthetic.
“Scarlet” embraces an urge to struggle, very similar to the singer appears to do with on-line trolls, with the penultimate tune “Balut.” The monitor begins with an audio sample of American skilled wrestler Ric Flair asserting, “Remember this, girls / None of you can be first, but all of you can be next!” It is obvious from this album that Doja Cat needs to be singular on this planet of music, unencumbered by the opinions and pressures of being a celeb. She needs to be well-known in her personal method and in her personal time.
My favourite tune on the album, “WYM Freestyle,” options that f***-you-all perspective all through the monitor.
“F*** up all them other albums on repeat,” Doja Cat decisively raps on the monitor. “Always knew them claims was cap ’cause y’all be sinnin’.”
After listening to “Scarlet,” there is no such thing as a mistaking Doja Cat’s discontent with the pop music movie star business and her aim to interrupt out of any pre-existing mildew she was pressured into by the media. Intentions apart, her lyrical talent on this album is simple. On “Balut,” Doja Cat raps, “It’s like takin’ candy from a baby.” This could seem to be a easy idiomatic reference, however with balut being a dish made up of a steamed or boiled fertilized egg embryo, one can assume “baby” is a double entendre.
The performer’s lyricism and genius musical pacing are additionally evident within the second tune of the album, “Demons.” She pauses and slows down on particular phrases for emphasis. On the road, “I’m a puppet, I’m a sheep, I’m a cash cow,” she finds totally different pockets within the positively nasty beat to take a seat inside. Those moments make you need to curl your higher lip and smirk like a traditional Disney villain, or dare I say, like a demon.
The method Doja Cat carries this demon-core aesthetic by even her extra relaxed songs on the album entertained me essentially the most. “Love Life” felt like listening to spoken phrases, and “Often” felt like a Sade tune with far more autotune. The former, by way of lyrics, reads a bit like a love tune, nevertheless it nonetheless manages to seize her nightmare pop lens with an almost hypnotic repetition of the refrain.
In contemplating the arc of “Scarlet,” Doja Cat begins with two of her preliminary single releases, “Paint The Town Red” and “Demons,” drawing listeners in with one thing extra recognizable. Her transition into one among my different favourite songs, “F*** The Girls (FTG),” and others like “Ouchies” or “97,” acts as an vital assist for the album’s deal with unbothered self-empowerment.
The center of the album isn’t as star-studded, however monitor reputation apart and musically-oriented, a few of Doja Cat’s weakest songs are positioned right here. “Gun” felt a bit like a throw-away tune. While nonetheless enjoyable and catchy, it doesn’t deliver any new sound or lyrical high quality to an already packed album. “Can’t Wait” additionally will get a bit misplaced in “Scarlet.” The intention behind the lyrics and timing of the monitor felt much less lucid than her starting and ending songs within the album.
Ending with “Attention,” “Balut” and “WYM Freestyle” does depart the album on a word that felt very true to Doja Cat’s power in her present period. It helps “Scarlet” get well from the marginally much less charming center part, bringing the simmering power and just-under-the-surface pleasure again into the listening expertise. Ultimately, “Scarlet” felt very Doja Cat: genius, controversial, vibrant, spooky, up to date, bizarre, trustworthy, rebellious, avant-garde and completely singular.
Zimra Chickering (24C) is a born and raised Chicagoan who research artwork historical past and diet science. She can also be a Woodruff JEDI Fellow, academic committee chair for Slow Food Emory, organizer of Art Circles at Emory, and a tour information for the Michael C. Carlos Museum. Zimra loves cooking, mountaineering, visiting artwork museums, images, consuming tea, studying, and grocery purchasing. She makes use of writing as an outlet to mirror upon points and oppurtunities inside creative establishments, and the distinctive methods through which meals and artwork can act as communicators of tradition.
