As we arrive at the heart of The Starrr of the Queen of Life (mid-to-late songs such as Arcadia and Leave), Debby Friday gives in to the mesmeric sway of her nightlife, offering herself to whatever the club has in store as she dances absently. She awaits the breakbeats of Bet on Me; the upper that showcases the head-emptying fun an album such as this urges itself to own, breaking for meditation before letting those beats kick back in as the shared sweat of the club dictates everybody’s movement.
Debby Friday’s second – following 2023’s Good Luck – is a confused album. It is confused in a manner that speaks to Debby’s talents; few electronic, club-bound albums, such as this, are able to convey the complexities Debby does. Where Charli XCX’s Brat achieved artistic credibility amid a vow to be as un-artsy as possible, Debby goes artsier in a similar setting, and The Starrr of the Queen of Life is her bid to couple strong moods inspired by astrology with dance music’s switching off of the mind, and throwback sounds with futurism.
There is a glut of blissful ignorance on offer – there are songs titled All I Wanna Do Is Party and In the Club, go figure – but with deep thought mixed in, hedonism strikes a little differently. Debby Friday is living life as a risk-taker, and wishes to obtain success and satisfaction her own way – not the way somebody else sets out, not the popularly accepted way – and so, she was destined to strike differently.
She melds the many sparks that make her album so special into the aforementioned All I Wanna Do Is Party; a bit of spring-loaded bubblegum bass amid the throwbacks, a careful yet freeing mix rivalled by Darker the Better’s desire to mix synth punk and PinkPantheress. While its production dazzles, Debby repeats “I don’t wanna lose my mind / I keep seeing all these signs” conveniently when the music slips into a colder slow-build, like a deer blinded by the bright lights that plague her good time.
While she is able to build that bridge between the Ministry of Sound’s glory days and today’s Danny L. Harle-led laptop crew, she’s just as fluent at constructing her songs to suit the cranks in her mood. If All I Wanna Do Is Party didn’t clue you in, 1/17 contains synthesisers that cut out at the exact right time, bubble back in at the exact right time, in and out of meditation, always in the club, craving a greater wisdom, slipping back into dance. Her trance is her life, and her life is “poetry and nude selfies”, a juxtaposition that splits seriousness and fun.
Seriousness does take over; In the Club is an old school techno spike-in-the-gut that shares a temperament with HiTech. Lipsync is a rapped anthem that gets raunchy, fuelling serious erotica – Higher is an unflinching, Africa-born rhythmic vibe, fuelling serious exotica. Still, this isn’t “seriousness over fun”; Debby remains plenty animated and exciting.
No, she is simply shaking all of her thoughts off of her body, one moment making a show of herself on the dancefloor, the next questioning existence while Alice Deejay’s Better Off Alone burns in the background. The Starrr of the Queen of Life breeds nightlife into introverted spaces; a mood-heavy experience that contains multitudes.
The post Debby Friday’s ‘The Starrr of the Queen of Life’: Navigating Nightlife, Identity, and Artistic Ambition appeared first on Indie is not a genre.
