For a while, Dorian Electra’s brand of disrupting electropop has been one of the industry’s best-kept secrets.
This past year alone, they’ve morphed from a day-to-day office worker on ‘Career Boy’ to a ready-for-combat fighter on ‘Man to Man’, a modern Liberace on ‘Flamboyant’ and even an opulent sugar daddy on ‘Daddy Like’. Now, those flicks unite with seven others to make up Electra’s debut album Flamboyant, and it’s one hell of a ride…
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It’s a debut album that’s been a lifetime in the making. The journey the Texas-born artist has been on to become Dorian Electra is one of the industry’s most fascinating (see last week’s candid interview in The Guardian for more). Flamboyant sounds like a culmination of a lifetime as Electra slips seamlessly from one version of themselves to another in a Pick ‘n Mix of fizzling pop sounds and winking lyrics.
It’s a jack of all trades characteristic that has shone through on the album’s singles. Those tracks remain priceless moments on Flamboyant. ‘Flamboyant’ is a frivolous reclaiming of an adjective so often used as a slur against boundary-less minds such as Electra’s, ‘Daddy Like’ is so hilarious you might just miss its sex-positive lyrics and the singer’s poking fun at the macho-worker figure on ‘Career Boy’ makes for a track that should be compulsory on office playlists.
But Flamboyant is so much more than just those hits, it’s 11-tracks that deserve to be interacted with. ‘Musical Genius’ does everything it can to point out the subjectivity behind that idea with its distorted smashing away of Mozart-like chords and ‘Emasculate’ is a super-charged two-minute anthem for anyone needing to break society’s shackles. Elsewhere, ‘Adam & Steve’ is as playful as ever but is deadly serious as Electra writes their own bible in rage, “God made me, in Adam & Steve, and he loves me”, whilst ‘Guyliner’ sounds like a re-birth of Charli XCX collaboration ‘Femmebot’.
Above all, whatever the guise or clanking electronica that Electra chooses to carry their message forward, this is a record that is effortlessly catchy at every moment. That’s a credit to Electra’s long-time collaborators too. Mood Killer, Weston Allen, Absrdst, Dylan Brady, Umru, Bonnie McKee, robokid, Jesse Saint John, Will Vaughn, Diveo and Social Chair – they are all likeminded creators that have played a role and deserve to be namechecked.
??NOW ANNOUNCING?? "The ?????????? Tour"??My first ever headlining tour!!!?
?? w/ @moodkillermusic & more?
+support dates with ?@charli_xcx? ??TICKETS GO ON SALE THIS FRIDAY, JULY 19th – 10am LOCAL TIME??https://t.co/INNWzUdMDa pic.twitter.com/3MnNUeupWi— Dorian Electra (@DORIANELECTRA) July 15, 2019
And the name leading all of those is Dorian Electra’s. Flamboyant is a triumphant success, a defiant record in which every second counts. A credit to electropop, a credit to being outspoken and, more than all, a credit to Dorian Electra.