 |
| Fuck it, I'll call her an icon. |
Mikaela Mullaney Straus, aka, King Princess, has an interesting enough bio for someone so young - her great-great grandfather, Isidor Straus, was a member of Congress (and perhaps the only one) who slipped into the icy waters with The R.M.S. Titanic, and she descends from the co-owners of (fucking) Macy’s (though she’s clear on one thing: “I didn’t inherit any of this money”). Even her recent family history ties her to someone interesting - e.g., Oliver Straus, Jr., a recording engineer who ran Williamsburg’s Mission Sound recording studio, where she learned a true gear-head’s worth of knowledge, wisdom and technical prowess.
And yet she’s made more life on her own in her short time on Earth than most of us ever will. The challenge comes with wrapping your head around the avalanche of personal details and complexities that surround the one studio album she’s put out…with a deluxe version.
King Princess arrived with a rush of success: her debut single, “1950,” an ode “to The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith (1952 novel), to the LGBT community and queer love,” went platinum both on its own strengths and with a push from Harry Styles…who, by the way, she was scheduled to tour Europe with before COVID took a giant shit on everyone’s life and plans (fucking COVID…). She’s got a number of connections to the stars - e.g., Mark Ronson as the flagship artist to his Zelig Recordings (that was in 2017) and Fiona Apple, who calls Straus “my son” and who featured when Straus covered her song “I Know” - all of which sounds like going stratospheric out of the gates…but King Princess has a strong sense of playing on the outside looking in. Which is a shame, because, holy shit…she is good. But she also sounds like…for lack of a better phrase, a full-time fucking handful.
“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.”
That comes out of a New York Times profile from early 2020, before the world closed shop (and which I’m afraid of opening again for fear of burning my free reads), and I feel like the best way for a middle-aged straight man explain King Princess is to let Straus explain herself by way of some telling quotes - if with some filler by other writers. Before that, though, I wanted to round out her profile and career highlights so far.
Straus is gay and genderqueer (see quotes; they’re marvelous), and has a complicated/righteous relationship even with that - though, according to every source I’ve read, she identifies as “she” (something I’ll gladly change when she does). Her debut album, Cheap Queen, came out in 2019 and I’m going to borrow the Times’ description, which calls it “guitar-driven torch songs with lyrics sharpened by what sounds like a thousand years of love gone wrong.” She writes vividly about past relationships, some with the driven and famous - think Taylor Swift, only giving sub-zero fucks. She was working on a dance EP before COVID, which I repped on the sampler with “Only Time Makes It Human” (or at least I think that’s where I think that came from), but she generally seems as on hold as everyone else for the time being.
With that, let’s do those quotes, starting with a sampling from the Times:
(On the scale of her ambition)
“As a songwriter, Straus is doing what straight people have done throughout the history of pop: making her pain universal. “My music is queer because I’m queer,” she says. “But queer artist is not a category. You can’t make a playlist for queer artists because they’re not all the same. I don’t want to be put in the same category as a lot of these hos. I don’t like that. I want to compete with straight people. I want to fight some straight bitch to the death: Who can write a better song? I don’t want to be compared to just gay people.”
(On her gender identity and sexuality)
“Straus is ‘emotionally lesbian,’ she says, but ‘culturally’ a gay man: ‘Not really a woman, I’ve never been a woman. I’m a drag queen.’ In other words, she’s a young, queer, female-presenting alpha, gleefully claiming a cultural patch of ground once mostly reserved for male artists.”
From a really solid, telling (and free!) write-up in GQ (which gives you a lot more than I have, honestly):
“There’s the world that is predictable, and will always be predictable, and then there’s these weird things that happen where people go, ‘Oh my God. I like that. I don’t know why. It makes my fucking dick feel weird.’ I’m into that.’”
Finally, a nice easy pitch from Billboard, and a sampling of 14 things about King Princess:
“If I could collaborate with anyone, it would be tied between Nicki Minaj and Jack White. Or both. But I doubt that’d be very good.”
Asked for her favorite album, a question she called a “tough one,” she landed on Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti.
“The craziest thing I’ve ever done was join the music industry.”
And, personal favorite: “American music history is iconic.” (I love this person.)
Something between a will to power (or iconography) and vaguely related to envy seems to drive King Princess. Either GQ or the Times framed her as a throwback to the old-school, over-the-top model of “rock star” and that seems apt. Straus strikes as one of those people who are equal parts charismatic and exhausting, someone that quiet people like me could never get anywhere near just by disposition. I adore her as a human type; I miss that personality in the popular music and couldn’t be happier she did the crazy thing and joined the music industry. More, please...
About the Sampler
I’ve burned several King Princess singles into the ground over the past year - e.g., comparatively gentle tunes like “Ain’t Together” and “All Dressed in White” (love the phrasing in that one), the brilliant, ballad-esque “Ohio,” and two that run a medium between those two, “Prophet” and, my first, “You Destroyed My Heart,” which held my attention the second I heard, ““I could get you back and we could probably reenact, but I’m a better fag and you’re an amateur.” The note about the “universality” of her music/lyrics runs through all of those; who hasn't felt the pains and urges?
So…what haven’t I mentioned yet? Oh, looping back to “Cheap Queen” was a treat this time around, the same goes for “Homegirl.” Finally, to flag three I missed on the first pass - all them in a poppier vein - I included “Hit the Back” and “Back of a Cab.”
And yet she’s made more life on her own in her short time on Earth than most of us ever will. The challenge comes with wrapping your head around the avalanche of personal details and complexities that surround the one studio album she’s put out…with a deluxe version.
King Princess arrived with a rush of success: her debut single, “1950,” an ode “to The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith (1952 novel), to the LGBT community and queer love,” went platinum both on its own strengths and with a push from Harry Styles…who, by the way, she was scheduled to tour Europe with before COVID took a giant shit on everyone’s life and plans (fucking COVID…). She’s got a number of connections to the stars - e.g., Mark Ronson as the flagship artist to his Zelig Recordings (that was in 2017) and Fiona Apple, who calls Straus “my son” and who featured when Straus covered her song “I Know” - all of which sounds like going stratospheric out of the gates…but King Princess has a strong sense of playing on the outside looking in. Which is a shame, because, holy shit…she is good. But she also sounds like…for lack of a better phrase, a full-time fucking handful.
“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.”
That comes out of a New York Times profile from early 2020, before the world closed shop (and which I’m afraid of opening again for fear of burning my free reads), and I feel like the best way for a middle-aged straight man explain King Princess is to let Straus explain herself by way of some telling quotes - if with some filler by other writers. Before that, though, I wanted to round out her profile and career highlights so far.
Straus is gay and genderqueer (see quotes; they’re marvelous), and has a complicated/righteous relationship even with that - though, according to every source I’ve read, she identifies as “she” (something I’ll gladly change when she does). Her debut album, Cheap Queen, came out in 2019 and I’m going to borrow the Times’ description, which calls it “guitar-driven torch songs with lyrics sharpened by what sounds like a thousand years of love gone wrong.” She writes vividly about past relationships, some with the driven and famous - think Taylor Swift, only giving sub-zero fucks. She was working on a dance EP before COVID, which I repped on the sampler with “Only Time Makes It Human” (or at least I think that’s where I think that came from), but she generally seems as on hold as everyone else for the time being.
With that, let’s do those quotes, starting with a sampling from the Times:
(On the scale of her ambition)
“As a songwriter, Straus is doing what straight people have done throughout the history of pop: making her pain universal. “My music is queer because I’m queer,” she says. “But queer artist is not a category. You can’t make a playlist for queer artists because they’re not all the same. I don’t want to be put in the same category as a lot of these hos. I don’t like that. I want to compete with straight people. I want to fight some straight bitch to the death: Who can write a better song? I don’t want to be compared to just gay people.”
(On her gender identity and sexuality)
“Straus is ‘emotionally lesbian,’ she says, but ‘culturally’ a gay man: ‘Not really a woman, I’ve never been a woman. I’m a drag queen.’ In other words, she’s a young, queer, female-presenting alpha, gleefully claiming a cultural patch of ground once mostly reserved for male artists.”
From a really solid, telling (and free!) write-up in GQ (which gives you a lot more than I have, honestly):
“There’s the world that is predictable, and will always be predictable, and then there’s these weird things that happen where people go, ‘Oh my God. I like that. I don’t know why. It makes my fucking dick feel weird.’ I’m into that.’”
Finally, a nice easy pitch from Billboard, and a sampling of 14 things about King Princess:
“If I could collaborate with anyone, it would be tied between Nicki Minaj and Jack White. Or both. But I doubt that’d be very good.”
Asked for her favorite album, a question she called a “tough one,” she landed on Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti.
“The craziest thing I’ve ever done was join the music industry.”
And, personal favorite: “American music history is iconic.” (I love this person.)
Something between a will to power (or iconography) and vaguely related to envy seems to drive King Princess. Either GQ or the Times framed her as a throwback to the old-school, over-the-top model of “rock star” and that seems apt. Straus strikes as one of those people who are equal parts charismatic and exhausting, someone that quiet people like me could never get anywhere near just by disposition. I adore her as a human type; I miss that personality in the popular music and couldn’t be happier she did the crazy thing and joined the music industry. More, please...
About the Sampler
I’ve burned several King Princess singles into the ground over the past year - e.g., comparatively gentle tunes like “Ain’t Together” and “All Dressed in White” (love the phrasing in that one), the brilliant, ballad-esque “Ohio,” and two that run a medium between those two, “Prophet” and, my first, “You Destroyed My Heart,” which held my attention the second I heard, ““I could get you back and we could probably reenact, but I’m a better fag and you’re an amateur.” The note about the “universality” of her music/lyrics runs through all of those; who hasn't felt the pains and urges?
So…what haven’t I mentioned yet? Oh, looping back to “Cheap Queen” was a treat this time around, the same goes for “Homegirl.” Finally, to flag three I missed on the first pass - all them in a poppier vein - I included “Hit the Back” and “Back of a Cab.”
No comments:
Post a Comment