Cheap Queen - King Princess: Review
AKA Mikaela Straus is a New York singer songwriter who emerged a few years ago on a wave of LGBT positive pop music with her debut single 1950. After the song received a co-sign from Harry Styles, Mikaela was signed to Mark Ronson's record label. She released a debut EP last year and after dropping a number of singles has arrived with her debut record Cheap Queen here.
Review By Lavender:
While I wasn't initially impressed with Mikaela's first EP, last year her single Pussy Is God caught my attention and ended up in the back quarter of my Year End Singles List for 2018. After a run of mostly solid singles leading up to this record I was excited to see what she could offer a full length record, and while Cheap Queen may be a stepping stone to great things, it is far too inconsistent.
The singles for the record were a solid 3/4 but that isn't to say that they were the best set of songs I've ever heard, with the exception of by far the best song I've heard from Mikaela to date, Prophet. The track is flat out fantastic with a killer lead vocal performance laid out over the punchiest and most creative instrumentals you'll hear in a pop song all year. Everything about the song is fantastic and it could serve as a blueprint going forward for good Kind Princess songs.
The other two singles I enjoyed were Ain't Together and Hit The Back. The former has a passionate and intimate lead vocal performance and some great lyrics about a relationship that round it out as one of the more interesting tunes. Hit The Back on the other hand has some wandering verses that build up to a really solid chorus, a trope that you'll hear all over this album.
The one single I really couldn't stand was the title track Cheap Queen. The song is a completely flat and lifeless pop tune with almost nothing standout of unique about it whatsoever. Songs like Isabel's Moment and Watching My Phone are also just as lifeless and skippable, not to mention the closing track If You Think It's Love is just as bad as the Billie Eilish song that it sounds identical to. Homegirl is a pop tune so sweet it is flat out obnoxious and has no depth to either its lyrics or instrumental whatsoever.
Useless Phrases is under an minute and a half long and ends completely out of nowhere with no real structure. Thankfully the instrumental is really sweet and when the totally un-announced chorus vocals show up its a great moment. Trust Nobody sounds like a decent Camila Cabello song which isn't the worst thing in the world but its certainly tolerable despite the fact that the song is a simple formula old to get you from one hook to the next.
Tough On Myself is a slow paced dramatic tune that lets Mikaela show off some of her great vocal chops and while it doesn't have the best progression or anything it does have a number of great individual moments. Finally You Destroy My Heart is a pretty interesting tune with some unique instrumental bits and a pretty catchy refrain that gets worked and evolved in a great way to keep the track pretty fresh throughout.
If Cheap Queen is a showing of what King Princess is capable of doing well it is also just as effective at showing what she isn't capable of doing, at least not well. While the record has some excellent highlights there are more than just a couple songs here that don't live up to the quality standard set by the better singles. Hopefully we will look back on this record as the start of a great career in alternative pop music, but on its own it doesn't have the consistency of execution to be one of the more significant records of 2019. 5/10
