My Agenda - Dorian Electra: Review
is one of the most unique voice's in hyper pop blending genres and tackling gender norms with a uniquely wild and androgynous personality. Dorian's music is just as unique as the numerous singles released leading up to this record often took drastically different sonic approaches and the feature list has names as unpredictable as pop legends The Village People and Russian provocateurs Pussy Riot.
Review By Lavender:
If that introduction to Dorian left you head spinning get used to it. I was head over heels for some of the singles from Dorian's first record particularly Career Boy but the final album felt like a compromise to me. Nothing about My Agenda feels like a compromise as Dorian clearly threw everything they could possibly find at the wall here regardless of what stuck or didn't. The record blends genres together constantly with the help of some wild guests and paints a surprisingly indulgent narrative all spun around the fedora wearing incel character Dorian paints on the album. Given the ridiculous circumstances and ambition behind the album it had a massive range of outcomes and even though there are some tracks here with flawed concepts from the start, I'm happy to say that for the most part I enjoy My Agenda a lot.
The album is only 11 tracks long with one interlude so most of the record was already out in the world through it's 6 singles, which are a pretty good bunch of tracks. The first single and the two most recent singles we're my favorite of the bunch and turned out to be by far my favorite songs on the record. Sorry Bro (I Love You) is a great piece of Dylan Brady production to which Dorian brings a hilarious personality singing a love song aimed at a fellow bro. The track is ridiculously infectious and gets better and better every time I hear it. Edgelord was an interesting prospect given that it featured Rebecca Black of all people and has some really interesting visuals attached to it. The production from umru hits hard and Dorian's dramatic lead vocals on the hook are intoxicating. Rebecca Black manages to match his swagger and drop a killer verse of her own ending in a ridiculously badass lyrics about turning a fuckboy into a simp that I can't get enough of. The title track My Agenda is just as absurd as you would imagine a song from Dorian, Pussy Riot and the Village People would be. The beat hits hard as fuck and Dorian leads the song off with slick and confident verses and a great hook even further highlighted by chanted vocals from the VIllage People. It gets absolutely meme worthy when the airhorns and dubstep breakdown come in for the Pussy Riot bridge but the whole thing just fits and I love it.
The closing track Give Great Thanks was also a single and I can only describe it as a kinky ass BDSM style ballad with Clarence Clarity and umru teaming up on an instrumental that sounds like a Mario water level. I like the hook a lot and while some of the sexual imagery is Cupcakke levels of on the nose I can tolerate it for the song to work. The other singles were released together, a pair of short tracks Gentleman and M'Lady. The latter has a multifaceted instrumental and clear concept that goes over really well despite the repetition. Gentleman is the only single that hit me as a real let down. At under two minutes the hook is really the only punch that the song has at it does almost nothing for me which leaves nothing else really here.
Barbie Boy is a great track with a pounding hyper pop chorus and overblown depictions of sexuality that reminds me of everything I think Dorian does well. Not only is it one of the catchiest songs on the album but it does it with a brevity that makes it perfectly bite sized for the record. Ram It Down is a posse cut but even before you've heard any of the features it is a roller coaster starting with Dorian's slick poppy introductory verse. This leads into a heavy metal meltdown which leads further into an AG Cook style supersaw phrase. I actually think the songwriting here is pretty solid at its core and while the bridge sounds so out of place everything else works for the most part.
The record doesn't miss often but when it misses it can be kind of disastrous. F The World sees Dylan Brady and umru teaming up on production that does not give you a second to breathe. I definitely wish I could her the lyrics on the hook better even though they sound like a really weird singing voice I think they could be much more effective with an actually audible mix. The second half of the song is a posse cut of sorts with a couple of stylistically different verses and an even more different bridge. The song has it's moments but the total lack of cohesion is really distracting. Iron Fist is definitely the worst song here that sees Dorian bringing back the Career Boy vocals even though the song doesn't aim for anything particularly poppy of catchy about it. In fact I think it's more meant to be menacing and a bit sexy and these clashed priorities result in a song that just turns out kind of a mess.
My Agenda is an album that refuses to settle down sonically or stylistically and the result is mostly exciting and unique hyper pop with a few duds mixed in. Given how short the songs on the album are and how short the record as a whole is I do wish some of these seemingly obvious down points had been dealt. I think the records flow and overall cohesiveness could have been helped but as it stands today I think My Agenda is at least a proof of concept that Dorian can write indulgent but rewarding music for at least then length of a long EP, and I hope that sometime soon they will pull it off for a whole album. 7/10
Album Cover Review By Tyler Judson:
There is a lot of distortion in this cover but I would expect nothing less from Dorian Electra I love the limited color palette and the bright in your face greens. You're still able to see what the image actually is and that's admirable given how many blurs and light flares there are. The only thing I would like is a small title somewhere because this could've easily just been an Instagram photo. It needs some sort of labelling even if it is just something small. 6.5/10
For more hyper pop check out my review of AG Cook's Apple here
