(Island)
Lurching between well-worn current chart trends and 90s European pop-dance with flimsy melodies and frightful lyrics, Petras and her songwriters all miss the mark
These are high times for Kim Petras. Previously a marginal figure in the world of pop – she attracted a degree of notoriety for 2022’s spectacularly potty-mouthed EP Slut Pop – she was catapulted into mainstream consciousness when she appeared on Sam Smith’s global chart-topper Unholy. It made Petras the first openly transgender artist to have a US No 1 and the first trans artist to win a major category Grammy. There followed other markers of the German pop star’s newfound celebrity. In May, she appeared on the red carpet at the Met Gala, clad in Marc Jacobs, and was announced as one of four cover models for Sports Illustrated’s annual swimsuit issue.
If only the music on her major label debut album was as interesting and innovative as its author is, or even as diverting as Unholy, the gothic theatricality of which sounded markedly different to any other recent No 1. It’s tacked on to the end of Feed the Beast, but its presence only serves to underline that there’s nothing else like it here either. Instead, the album occasionally lunges towards some well-worn current pop trends. The clipped 80s sound familiar from the Weeknd’s Blinding Lights and subsequent hits including Ed Sheeran’s Bad Habits and Harry Styles’ As It Was gets another airing on Minute. Alone, meanwhile, fits with the vogue for borrowing huge chunks of immediately recognisable old hits by sticking a trap beat under Alice Deejay’s pop-trance smash Better Off Alone, a trick already pulled on Wiz Khalifa’s 2008 single Say Yeah.
