TRACK REVIEW: King Princess - House Burn Down

TRACK REVIEW:

King Princess

House Burn Down

9.5/10

The track, House Burn Down, is available from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip6Suz5wHXs

GENRE:

Indie-Pop

ORIGIN:

Brooklyn, U.S.A.

RELEASE DATE:

1st June, 2021

LABELS:

Zellig Records, LLC

__________

AS it is Pride Month…

PHOTO CREDIT: Lea Winkler for W Magazine

I am especially excited that I get to review King Princess. The genderqueer/gay artist (who uses she/her pronouns) has just released an awesome new single. Real name Mikaela Straus, King Princess is one of the most exciting young artists in the world. Her debut album, Cheap Queen, was released in 2019 to huge acclaim. I wonder whether she will follow that album this year. I want to spend some time discussing King Princess’ sexuality (as I think it is important to her identity and music) - but there are a number of other things to address. Before I get to anything else, I want to spend a little bit of time exploring King Princess’ (I shall refer to her as such rather than Mikaela Straus) upbringing. In an interview with FADER from 2019, we learn more about the earlier years:

“Straus was born on December 19, 1998 and raised in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Her parents were in a metal band: her father Oliver played drums, her mom Agnes sang. “They’re divorced now so maybe the band dynamic wasn’t the best for them!” she laughs. Nevertheless, her mom did convince her dad to buy a house in Williamsburg — they would live upstairs and turn the basement into a recording space. Eventually Straus’s dad bought a proper studio nearby and founded Mission Sound, where everyone from Arctic Monkeys to Jack Antonoff to Animal Collective have recorded. “It was magical,” recalls Straus. “I would play with the console and it felt like a spaceship, and you know, if you’re a dykey kid, those are the right toys.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Matt Salacuse for NME

Matt and Kim, who recorded there in 2009, remember Straus as a 10-year-old. “We started talking about how cool it must have been growing up in Williamsburg. She replied with something like, ‘It was way better before these condos started showing up!’” Matt recounts. “Kim and I were shocked, because she seemed like she was 30 years old already. She was really outgoing, and not nervous around adults like some kids are… she could just hang like she was any of our friends.”

Straus attended an artsy private school in Chelsea, Manhattan. Her early experiences in formal music class were “very kumbaya, very choral,” and her teacher kept yelling at her because she was singing too loud. Once upon a time she was cast in a production of Oklahoma, but was asked to leave for being too rowdy. Straus started off playing drums like her dad, before progressing to the guitar, piano, and bass. There are dozens of recordings of her from age five onwards, but it wasn’t until she was in high school that Straus wrote her first proper song. “That’s when I started being fully gay and eating pussy,” she says. “That’s when the songs started flowing out of me, because I had something to say”.

There was more from that interview that continued the story. There is another interview that I will get to soon that also discusses the young life (she is young now; I mean childhood) of King Princess. I am always compelled to look at the upbringing of artists, as I feel that feeds into their music and it is a very important consideration.

Many people might recognise King Princess from her awesome debut single, 1950. It is hard to make an impression right form the start. Most artists take a while to establish themselves and may take quite a while to reach a lot of people. It is tough in a very crowded and varied music industry. With King Princess, she came in very hot! It was not like the songwriter was fresh out of the blocks and got lucky. As we read in a High Snobiety interview, music was always around her:

“Although she seemingly popped out of nowhere with her debut single “1950” last year, she’s been surrounded by music all her life. The daughter of a recording engineer, Straus spent much of her childhood at her dad’s Mission Sound studio in Brooklyn, which she says was essential to her development as a multifaceted musician and entertainer.

“It was really helpful to just watch people be musicians and play instruments – the biggest part of me, as an artist, is that I just love to fiddle around and play instruments and produce,” the singer tells me. “If I hadn't had so many examples of incredible musicianship as a kid, I probably wouldn't have put an emphasis on that. I could have just been a singer, or a dancer.”

Even at a young age, Straus was captivating, and clearly had talents that needed to be shared with the world. At age 11, she was offered a record deal that she declined, wanting to develop her own sound before signing. Meeting her now, as a charmingly precocious 20-year-old, it’s clear she has a singular vision that has been crystalizing throughout her adolescence and young adulthood, which makes working with her a breezy pleasure.

But since the release of her debut single and its corresponding EP (Make My Bed), it’s been clear what King Princess is all about – an unmistakable sound with earnest, clever lyrics, expressing all the woes and wishes of a young 21st-century queer person. “Pussy Is God,” which emerged late last year, is a standout track. It’s a total earworm, but not the kind that relies on saccharine pop tropes. Instead, it’s got slap bass, catchy piano riffs, chopped up vocal samples, and almost gospel-like harmonies”.

I am going to jig the timeline slightly so that I can take us up to 2020 before going back to Cheap Queen in 2019. I am keen to cover biography and show how King Princess has risen and developed as an artist since the earliest days. Even though last year was tough for musicians to make an impression – because of the pandemic -, it was one where King Princess solidified her excellence and hit new heights. In an NME interview that I will source from a few times, we discover more about her 2020 – in addition to why the video for her single, Ohio, was so evocative and memorable:

“Nailing the particulars of love fading and falling to pieces, her 2018 EP ‘Make My Bed’ and last year’s full-length record ‘Cheap Queen’ ooze an aching sadness, harking back to old school balladeers laying their pain bare for a chattering, smoke-filled room. Yet new single ‘Pain’, released earlier this week, is a rollicking pop song that teams an upbeat melody with devastating lyrics (“I feel it now / Pain”).

She set the table for this new approach earlier in 2020 with ‘Ohio’; the song is a thrashing headbanger that captures the excess of classic rock. The accompanying music video shows King Princess first as a glamorous drag queen performing ballads for a room of cheering, shirtless men, before transforming into a prowling rock star. Delirious stage invaders are hoisted away by security. In between smashing up guitars, and getting her hairspray touched up mid-shredding solo, King Princess makes out with her girlfriend at the side of the stage, and runs around, as she put it to NME, “titties out”.

Before moving along, it is prudent to remain where we are in terms of discussing King Princess’ rise to prominence. Even though she didn’t just arrive out of the blue, she was quick to establish herself. A lot of people also knew about her before the arrival of Cheap Queen. Although her 2018 debut single, 1950, announced us to the remarkable talent, Cheap Queen was the big revelation and success. Grabbing from this interview in W Magazine, King Princess was thrust into the spotlight very shortly after the release of her debut album:

“In the last few years, Straus’s career has taken off: she broke through in 2018 with “1950”— an unhurried, melancholic pop gem—and followed up the next year with her debut album, Cheap Queen. The album’s heady mix of raspy rock songs and velvety, R&B-inflected ballads—at once viscerally tender and compulsively catchy—signaled Straus’s unflinching emotional vulnerability and gleeful sexual indulgence, not to mention a reserve of heartache beyond her years. Cheap Queen made Straus a rising star, even allowing her to crack the Top 20 on Billboard’s Top Alternative Albums list. But it was King Princess—with all her bawdy, winsome rock n’ roll charm, prowling the stage each night in a semi-transparent white tank top—who made Straus an industry darling overnight. Within months of the album drop, Straus released the mournful track “I Know” with Fiona Apple and announced a spring 2020 tour with Harry Styles. She became an artist’s artist, a scrappy beacon of old school rock grandeur who immediately set about ripping open the last fraying seams of a once tightly buttoned up industry. “A lot has changed in the last few years, but to be honest, I’ve been preparing for this my whole life,” she laughs. “I sat in this bedroom as a kid and planned out all my Saturday Night Live performances and Grammy speeches”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Matt Salacuse for NME

That takes us to the remarkable debut album. With sexuality, soulfulness and funkiness, King Princess dissected and explored themes of sexuality and identity in a unique way. She definitely caught the attention of critics. Cheap Queen was crowded as one of the finest albums from 2019. Going back to the High Snobiety interview, King Princess reveals the process of writing the album:

“She describes writing her debut album Cheap Queen as “chronological” and “very feeling-based with just what was going down in my life.” Its lyrics are deceptively simple, often so straightforward that they land as if you’ve heard them before. There’s a balance between bangers and ballads, with many songs integrating both vibes at the same time. Interestingly, from a production standpoint – even on the level of the software she uses – King Princess’ music-making process revolves around the dichotomy of being a cheap queen. “It's a mixture of cheap and expensive, always,” she explains. “You want things to sound cheap, but very good, and that's hard to do. But I think Ableton allows me to do that”.

Over 13 tracks, the album presents another kind of juxtaposition, buried beneath caked-on makeup: strong vulnerability. On a very basic level, King Princess herself radiates a confidence that’s almost impermeable – but there are soft spots, too. “Tough on Myself,” the album’s opener, posits a vulnerable strength from the beginning, as Straus laments how hard she is on herself while longing after someone. Or, in her own words: “I think after this record cycle, I've become a lot less tough on myself, because I was making this whole thing and wanting it to be perfect. It was a hard thing to do, starting with a song like ‘1950’ and then all of a sudden being tasked with making a body of work that lived up to that. In reality, the album needed to be a step up in my artistic growth, rather than an album full of fucking hits. It just needed to be me”.

Straus’ favorite lyrics on the album display a good glimpse into the general atmosphere of Cheap Queen: “And I'm alone / Watching my phone / Thinking 'bout you, baby,” on “Watching My Phone,” and, “I could get you back / And we could probably reenact / But I’m a better fag, and you’re an amateur,” on “You Destroyed My Heart.” Both capture the notion of strength in vulnerability. They also happen to brilliantly communicate the zeitgeist of being a person in their early twenties at the end of the 2010s”.

In an interview with FADER, quite a bit was revealed regarding the themes and inspirations behind the songs. The story and history of Cheap Queen is really interesting:

“Released in late October, the songs that make up Cheap Queen chronicle a tumultuous year for the 21-year-old singer. At the beginning of those 12 months she was in love, and then she was heartbroken; when the year closed out she was in love again, but with someone new. It was the year Straus released her first piece of music and soon found herself squinting into the bright lights. She was a rising star in her own right, but also the plus-one to a romantic partner already established in the celebrity firmament. This was the year Mikaela Straus became King Princess. “I wouldn’t have this record without this last year and all the shit that went down,” she says, leaning in. “I never want to not write music about my life because it’s so painful and so cathartic. It’s because of the music that I’m fine. The music is the closure”.

“Straus says “Isabel’s Moment” is the record’s beating core, and while it’s true that the singer’s romantic relationships aren’t necessarily central to the work, the shards of her broken heart glitter and gleam all over Cheap Queen, because heartbreak is a motherfucker. Sometimes you feel it coming, unease creeping like fire curling the edges of yesterday’s paper; sometimes, even when you know you’re on shifting ground, you still feel blindsided, a suckerpunch that leaves you gasping. “Watching My Phone” is one of those crushingly relatable moments: A study in power, balance, and control, and how sometimes, even if you know that person isn’t your person, you love them anyway, and you love them too hard.

“Yeah that’s the one, let’s talk about her,” Straus says unblinking. “Tears, seriously. I wrote it three days before this break up. It was the darkest night. Sometimes I think I’m a demon-wizard who knows exactly what’s going to go down all the time and the music is my prophecy”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Danielle Levitt for GQ

Not to necessarily emphasis this subject because it is Pride Month, though King Princess is definitely an L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ icon. She is someone who inspires others. Through June, so many L.G.B.T..Q.I.A.+ artists will be celebrated. As I said right at the start, King Princess is genderqueer. In the NME interview, we discover why King Princess neither identifies as male or female:

“King Princess (who uses she/her pronouns) is genderqueer, meaning that she doesn’t identify with either of the binary male and female genders. She sees herself as sitting somewhere roughly in the middle – but notes that “some people do not view being genderqueer as half-and-half”. She’s not interested in diluting this from her work.

“Rock’n’roll is about sex,” she continues. “When you see somebody being raunchy, sexy and dirty and doing it of their own accord, it hits this point in some people that makes them feel uncomfortable, because it’s not the type of manicured sexuality we have been fed. I’ve always sexualised myself, and I don’t think very much about what men think about my sexuality; it doesn’t even occur to me. I don’t exist in a world, luckily, where I have to be like, ‘Can I show my titties today?’ I just do whatever the fuck I want. Nobody on my team is being like, ‘Hey – tone it down.” She adds with a laugh: “Nobody would dare!”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Lea Winkler for W Magazine

Even in 2021, it is tough for queer artists to be themselves and be as expressive as they would like. There is greater visibility now than there was years ago, though there is still some way to go. Not to suggest that queer artists are not accepted. Conversations have grown and, especially during Pride Month, we are discovering so many L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ artists and hearing their stories. In an interview with GQ, King Princess touched on the nature of queerness and how it (as part of her identity and her career) has impacted her:

“Being queer in and of itself is political, even when you don’t want it to be – a fact that Straus was forced to quickly reckon with as her career hit a sudden upswing. ‘I knew I was going to be politicised, but it wasn’t my thought when I wrote 1950. I was like, “This bitch broke my heart, I’m gonna need to write about it.”’

Straus wrote, performed and produced much of Cheap Queen, which she released in October. It’s a ripe, raw rumination on the wreckage of a relationship: what went right, what went wrong, and how you deal with it. As with any break-up, there are sobering flits of mourning and many manifestations of grief. The emotional spectrum of Cheap Queen is vast and messy, a lot like real life. Isabel’s Moment, featuring Tobias Jesso Jr, clings to the hope that a romantic flame might just reignite, while Do You Want to See Me Crying? lashes out: ‘I feel better with my heart out, and you’re probably just a fan now, babe,’ she sings. Hit the Back, which Straus describes as a ‘bottom anthem’, is about as frivolous as it gets, invoking the surrender of oneself not just to the rhythm, but also to a lover. The title track is littered with vocal samples of an anti-lesbian public service announcement from the 1930s, and finds solace in friendship when romantic love burns out, while You Destroyed My Heart takes a more sinister approach: ‘I could get you back and we could probably reenact, but I’m a better fag and you’re an amateur”.

‘I hate when they compare me to other gay people and they’re like: “These are the ones!” I don’t need you to compare me to all these gay people, honey, put me in the ring with some straights,’ she says. (Straus calls everyone ‘honey’.) But, she demurs. ‘Queer people are from this incredibly rich tapestry of artists and musicians. I’m so proud to be a part of that lineage. When I do get politicised in those moments, I think about that. I’m in a very lucky position to be where I am right now. I’m not in danger. People aren’t writing in disgusting tabloids about how I might be gay, because I’m literally like, “I eat puss!”’

PHOTO CREDIT: Matt Salacuse for NME

There are more interviews that I want to quote from regarding King Princess and her sexual identity. Growing up, it was hard for her to identify with queer artists, as there were not to many out there. Maybe there were, though they were not as visible and assimilated as today. So many powerful queer artists have emerged in the past few years. Going back to the FADER interview, and this subject is explored more:

“Aside from Gaga, there weren't many role models Straus identified with when she was growing up. Now King Princess can be pinned to bedroom walls alongside queer pop icons like Christine and the Queens, Troye Sivan, Hayley Kiyoko (that’s Lesbian Jesus to her fans), Halsey, Shura, Kim Petras, and Kindness. These artists are leading conversations previously held only in hushed tones — if they were held at all. Straus explains that when she was younger she didn’t relate to women, but that finding a group of girls in high school where she felt accepted, not tokenized, was a game-changer. I ask her how she would describe her gender.

PHOTO CREDIT: Matt Salacuse for NME

“I had a really long talk with my friend about this yesterday: I think I’m a gender-queer person — I’ve always liked being called she, and she for me is more like the royal she. I feel like I’ve never felt connected to my female body, I’ve never felt entirely female. I sometimes feel like I’m an observer to femininity more than a participant. It’s hard because for a long time you exist in this binary where if you’re not trans or fully transitioning, and you’re not cis, that middle ground isn’t considered real.”

She continues: “But it absolutely is because gender is a spectrum and I know how I feel when I wake up every day — it’s different, it changes, I’m in-between, and I’m so thankful because it’s such a beautiful perspective”.

“It’s when you’re asked, How does being gay influence your music? Imagine being asked that!” she exclaims. “How does being straight influence your writing? No girl. It doesn’t. It’s just life. Sometimes I see something that’s written about me and I’m like, Was it really that necessary to spend 90 percent of the interview talking about what it means for me to be a gay artist? Is it maybe more important that I’m producing my own music?”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Lissy Elle

The final interview that covers queerness and King Princess’ sexuality comes from TEETH. Among the topics discussed, King Princess talked about sexuality and how it can identify artists:

“Did you have role models who fulfilled this aspect for you growing up?

Yeah, I did, but when you don’t see people who look like you in mainstream media, you get diet forms. It’s important to hear same-sex language. Artists that we all go back to, like the Bowies, are people who seem to move seamlessly between gender. I’m like, wouldn’t that be fun if there were more people like that! It’s a no-brainer.

It would be nice to get to a point where the sexuality of an artist wasn’t definitive.

Totally, but we’re not there yet. It’s still a discussion because otherwise, people forget that it’s still an issue and there are still kids out there who aren’t safe. But there is a lot of great stuff coming out right now and the gays are killing the game. I’m happy to be a part of that movement.

You don’t want it to define you, but at the same time, it is a self-defining thing.

It’s also such a point of pride if you allow it to be. I knew I was gay from a young age and came out really young. I found people who are queer to fill that familial need in my friends, but not everyone does.

Do your friendships and community inspire your work?

Yeah! What I love about the people I surround myself with is that there is a commonality between us. We’ll go and see drag shows and freak the fuck out. We’ll go and see movies. I love having people that you can talk about art with. It makes me feel like I can fully be an artist and feel like I’m fully in it and supported by these people. I’m so inspired by my friends, I think that they are some of the best love stories that you can have”.

One aspect of King Princess that is, perhaps, not covered and talked about that much is how she takes control in the studio. She would call herself a studio/tech geek. Someone who has a fascination and clear bond with production and the studio, alongside producers like Mark Ronson (who I will bring in soon), she helped to craft the sound and brilliance of Cheap Queen. Coming back to the NME interview, we discover more about King Princess and production:

“Deep down, Straus is a hardcore studio nerd: she waxes lyrical about Neve mixing consoles and Magnatone boutique amps. Growing up, acts such as Missy Elliott, Cyndi Lauper and The National would record at Mission Sound, and she found as many excuses as possible to loiter in the studio – when Arctic Monkeys came to record 2009’s ‘Humbug’ (and 2011’s ‘Suck It And See’) Straus would wander in to ‘borrow’ some milk. “I would make sure I was in there as much as possible, really,” she says. “That’s where I wanted to be. I didn’t want to be anywhere else.”

Straus co-produced every song on ‘Cheap Queen’. Misconceptions – particularly the sexist assumption that she wasn’t producing her own stuff – grated. “People will say: ‘So what’s it like having Mark produce your stuff?’ I get constant questions like that. Regardless of whether I’m collaborating or writing and recording stuff solo, there’s no Wizard of Oz figure making the music behind the scenes.”

She adds: “There’s obviously more pressure on female-presenting people to either sit back and do fucking nothing, or do everything. There’s no middle ground; you’re either the figurehead of this team of fucking writers per song, or you’re doing everything.” Of her own approach, she explains: “I collaborate, but at the end of the day it’s my ship”.

There is not enough conversation regarding sexism in studios. There are vastly more men in the studio compared to people from other genders. How many genderqueer producers are out there!? Maybe things have evolved recently, though I suspect that studios are still very male-heavy. This is dissected and illuminated in a fascinating interview from The New York Times Magazine:

“The provocateur persona can seem a front, a superheroic avatar constructed to insulate Straus from a rough and sexist industry. Ronson notes that when they first met, Straus talked about gear on a level that was almost over his head. “She’s used to going into a writing session and people just condescending to her,” he says. “I think part of it was nerding out, and part of it was she needed me to know that she knew how to engineer and produce records.” But even if its roots are defensive, Straus’s attitude has evolved into something genuinely subversive. What she is crafting in King Princess, in and around all her bluster, is a potentially new kind of rock star, or at least an old kind of rock star for a new age”.

Straus all but grew up in a recording studio. “It was everything,” she says of Mission Sound, the Williamsburg spot her father founded in 1995 and still runs. “It looks like a spaceship,” she says. “I’m so horny for that. I just love gear and equipment.” As a kid, tucked away and playing with musical toys in that dark, womblike space, Straus could forget how isolated and friendless she was. The only child of divorced parents, a kid with “horrible authority issues,” Straus had good reasons to feel like an outsider. “I was confused why other people couldn’t understand that I just wasn’t a girl and I wasn’t a boy,” she says. “I was really confused as to what gender I was until … now. Until tomorrow.” Her future, though, seemed clear. “You know what’s not a fun person to be around at age 7, 8, 9?” she asks. “Someone who knows they’re going to be famous. That kid is challenging. I was a lot. I was brutal. I had a band in high school that I was brutal to, and I’m still that way, like James Brown — you get billed if you play wrong. That’s my vibe”.

Just before getting to themes like Mark Ronson and New York (they are not connected), I want to spend a bit more time with King Princess as an artist. She has such a captivating personality. This has been covered in interviews. Bringing back the interview from The New York Times, there seem to be no barriers and limitations regarding what King Princess says:

“In the time we spent together, I saw her mime masturbation after talking about how hot she thinks the singer Rosalía is (“She gave me a hug, and I was like, ‘You smell good.”); declare that if she were a man, she would “have a small [expletive], but it would work good”; and announce that she wants to give her girlfriend a cast of her vagina for their anniversary. In between takes at the video shoot for “Ohio” — a slow-burn ballad that descends into an unhinged rock jam — she asked several members of her team to smell her armpits (noting that the left one was noticeably more rank than the right) and talked colorful smack about other artists, esteemed music-industry institutions and an ex-girlfriend’s new girlfriend. “I want you to come to my apartment after this,” she said, staring me down during a moment of tenuous calm as her makeup artist sprayed a fine mist of glittering fuchsia across her cheekbone, “because I can tell it’s inconvenient for you.”

“There’s a bit of a Gallagher-y thing to it,” says the producer Mark Ronson, who released Straus’s debut on his own Zelig Records, referring to the fractious Gallagher brothers from Oasis. “She’s talking so much [expletive]. But when you’ve got that razor-sharp wit, you can get away with it”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Arielle Bobb-Willis for The New York Times Magazine

I love how there is this confidence and attitude from King Princess. Rather than being outspoken, she is very honest and undiluted. In a social media age, so many artists are guarded regarding what they say, lest they risk being judged or criticised. As much as I love the music and the process behind her songs, it is really interesting finding out more about the personality of one of modern music’s most fascinating artists. Drawing in the W Magazine interview again, we learn a little more about the person behind King Princess:

“Straus may be a little cocky, but she’ll tell you that part herself. What becomes clear from talking to her is the depth of her obsession with—and her trade knowledge of—the less glamorous side of the industry. She’s a gearhead who spirals easily into enthusiastic soliloquies on the majesty of an out-of-production guitar amp or the artistic genius of a certain chewed-up session musician. Straus has a long list of the engineers and producers she’s wanted to work with since she was a tween, and these days she’s burning through it. “The truth is,” she jokes, “I only planned up to here.” Even after topping her own childhood expectations, the pressure to deliver release after release can be hard to manage. “This kind of career is so addictive, and if you’re after success you’ll only fail. But getting to work with all these insane people has reminded me that there is quite literally no wrong way to do this. I just want to constantly improve on my craft”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Lissy Elle

Maybe some people are not aware that Mark Ronson was one of the producers on Cheap Queen. I am not sure how the two came to know one another. Although King Princess has innate ability and talent when it comes to production, it appears that Ronson has helped foster that and provide advice. We learn more about this in an interview from Los Angeles Times:

“Still, King Princess insists she’s glad she waited to link up with Ronson, who said her demo exuded a type of street smarts that reminded him of Lady Gaga and Alicia Keys when they were starting out. “No shade,” the singer said, “but if I’d been signed and developed from 15 or 16, I would not be a happy person. My parents were amazing about not selling me into child labor.”

The delay also gave her time to hone her sound, which on “Cheap Queen” seems to beam directly from her heart even as the music juggles varied beats and textures. Tobias Jesso Jr., the cult-favorite singer-songwriter who wrote several songs with King Princess and contributes backup vocals to a dreamy ballad called “Isabel’s Moment,” commends the “emotional honesty” of her stuff — the way she uses her powerful voice, with its dramatic swoops from low and throaty to high and breathy, to deliver “an undiluted-ness that feels real.” (Other pals featured on the album include Father John Misty, who plays drums on the swinging “Ain’t Together,” and Romy Madley Croft of the xx, who co-wrote “Homegirl,” a warmly sensual promise to “give you my body at home.”)

King Princess — based these days in L.A., which she called “a spooky town full of celerity demons” — said she thinks of herself as a producer and instrumentalist more than as a singer. But she acknowledged that the rawness of her voice is an asset, one she’s grown proficient enough with that when she records a first-take vocal, she makes sure to use a good microphone, since it’s likely to end up in a song’s final mix.

Ronson, with an eye on his protégée’s future, said he’s been trying to convince her to “get off the Juul” and “learn how to manage her voice so she doesn’t lose it 10 years down the road”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Ryan McGinley for Interview Magazine

It is not long now until I get to reviewing House Burn Down. As King Princess hails from Brooklyn, New York is very much in her blood. Sticking with Mark Ronson and the two spoke with one another for Interview Magazine in 2018. New York (and its different boroughs) was covered:

“RONSON: You strike me as someone who doesn’t have a problem ending it.

PRINCESS: Yeah, I was the one who wanted the final word. There is definitely a behavioral pattern where I can take it to ten. I think that’s the New York side, too. Kids here are confrontational and strong-headed.

RONSON: Did being a Brooklyn kid and going to school in Manhattan put a chip on your shoulder? Do you feel like it gave you the ability to adapt and blend into anything

PRINCESS: I definitely pretended to play the part for many years. Being from Brooklyn, it was like a little respite thinking that I would go home to a neighborhood the kids in my school were scared of. It also allowed me to isolate myself and work on new lyrics.

RONSON: Is there another moment in the history of New York that you ever wish you could time travel to?

PRINCESS: I definitely romanticize history, like being in the New York writers’ circle in the 1950s. But in reality, it would have probably been fucking horrible—to be gay and out then, trying to make a living in New York. I would love to have been in New York in the ’70s. I would want to see that type of debauchery”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jessica Lehrman Photography

Even though he is (thankfully) no longer President, I was interested discovering what King Princess though of Donald Trump. America will recover from Trump’s term, though I was curious to learn how King Princess felt about him and America under his rule. This was discussed when V MAGAZINE spoke with her last year:

“The problem right now [is that] I’m seeing so much negativity around our options [with] who to vote for. I’m seeing a lot of people on the Internet go— ‘Okay, Trump is evil, but Joe Biden’s evil too, so we’re going to lose either way.’ To that I say, ‘if you’re starving and your options for food is something you don’t like or poison—you’re gonna pick the thing that you don’t like, and you’re going to eat it to sustain your life instead of eating poison.’ That’s what this election is about; the lesser of two evils. It’s about taking something that is a shitty situation overall and using your voice to reclaim a semblance of power and equality in this country. We are at an imperative point where we can either choose not to vote because everybody sucks, or you can literally [choose to] do the right thing and vote for the betterment of this country. Because, quite literally, it can get worse.

“We are living under a dictatorship and basically everyone who isn’t a white male is at risk. Women’s reproductive rights are at risk. The protection of Black and brown individuals is at risk. The protection of trans and queer people is at risk. The protection of immigrants is at risk. Everyone is at risk unless you are a white man. We’ve never experienced so many different forms of heinous oppression in this country. We’re under attack, and there’s no better time [than now] to be unified”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Meredith Wohl

Let’s get down to the awesome new song from King Princess, House Burn Down. I am not sure whether the song is going to form part of a second album – or whether it will be included in an E.P. or remain a standalone single. I think that King Princess writes some of the most expressive and exuberant Pop music. House Burn Down starts with a taut and funky beat and a cool guitar line. The pace is a little slower, but there is plenty of drive in her vocal performance. One can feel an explosion and rise imminently. The first verse is interesting: “Had me in the palm, had me in the palm of your hand/You could throw me down to see how I land/And I'm the type of bitch running 'till my next heartbreak/You still pull me 'round to see what I'll take”. The song becomes more layered and the guitar more squally and beefier as the chorus comes in. I wonder what inspired House Burn Down is about and whether it was affected by a former lover of King Princess. It does seem that, whomever influenced the track, they are quite challenging. I have come back to the song a few times to see if I could get a picture of the person behind the lyrics. The fact there is a little bit of mystery keeps you invested and guessing. The chorus is definitely striking and bold: “Oh woah-oh, I'm just waiting for this house to burn down/Oh woah-oh, and I'm just waiting for my luck to run out/Oh woah-oh, and if you tell me that you're leaving/Imma need a better reason than you hate the way I'm being oh oh/I'm just waiting for this house to burn down”.

I do like the contrast between the more soulful verses and the more Pop-orientated chorus. After the fiery and bright chorus, King Princess picks up the story. I have brought in interviews where we hear of quite a bold and confident person. House Burn Down suggests someone who, despite having these qualities, is not immune to hurt and heartache. Whereas things might have been good in the past, this relationship is getting harder and there are challenges in the way. It appears that things have taken a slight turn for the worse: “I'm the type of bitch always gotta dry her eyes/'Cause someone said somethin' I didn't like/Maybe I've been catching, maybe I've been catching good days/When you're sweet to me like lemonade/Oh woah-oh, I'm just waiting for this house to burn down/Oh woah-oh, I'm just waiting for my luck to run out/Oh woah-oh, and if you tell me that you're leaving/Imma need a better reason than you hate the way I'm being, oh oh”. I love how there is this dynamic where we get something calm and soulful, before one feels the build and there is this huge burst of energy! Before the chorus swings back in at the end, there is a section that speaks of contrast and complexity: “Damn, you're good when you say you love me/Damn, you're good when you give me nothing/Damn, you're good when you say you love me/Damn, you're good when you give me nothing (woo), ow”. I really love House Burn Down and have spun it a fair few times. It has a similar sound to tracks on Cheap Queen - though King Princess sounds more confident and assured than ever before. There has also been development in terms of her sound. I wonder whether the relationship being discussed in the song is stable or whether King Princess was talking about a rough patch that has resolved itself (or not_. It has this sense of mystery and tension that makes one return to the song to see if they can get to the bottom of it. House Burn Down is a typically fantastic song from the always-compelling King Princess.

PHOTO CREDIT: Cal & Aly

I will wrap it up very soon. Just before signing off, there is one more thing I want to highlight. I am coming back to the GQ interview I quoted from earlier. It is evident that her fans love her and she commands so much respect. There is a passage from the interview that really stuck with me:

“That confessional honesty has resonated with her legions of fans. Backstage at Ogden, Straus keeps a shrine of gifts that listeners have given to her, including white sneakers with hand-painted roses and an empty bag of seaweed snacks, her favourite, pinned to the wall. Outside, the line snakes down the block as doors set to open, something that her tour manager Trevor says has happened every night of this headlining trek so far. The concertgoers themselves range in age and appearance – many present as female and queer – but their fandom gives them common ground. ‘I like that she just owns her shit,’ says Karen, a schoolteacher from Colorado Springs. ‘It’s honest, she’s telling her story, whatever that is. People are becoming more progressive and open-minded. It’s becoming more popular to just not give a shit.’

Around the block at a nearby bar, where the Super Bowl is now in the third quarter on the screens, some fans are waiting the queue out with a few beers. ‘She’s queer as fuck,’ says one ticketholder named Annabelle. Her friend Anna elaborates: ‘There’s not a strong representation of people who are people who are also genderqueer, and not just straight- presenting. The best [...] that millennials had was Katy Perry’s I Kissed a Girl, which was “fauxmosexuality”. Representation is trendy right now, but it’s great to see it be genuine and not just constructed by Netflix”.

I love House Burn Down, and I hope that we get more music from King Princess this year. She is such a tremendous artist that has a very long career ahead of her. If you are not aware of King Princess or only dip into her music occasionally then…