Being a hyper masculine edgelord is officially gay™ now, thanks in no small part to queer hyperpop icon Dorian Electra and their new album, My Agenda. With colorful production by Count Baldor, Dylan Brady, Clarence Clarity, umru, and many others, the versatile soundscapes on My Agenda embody every conceivable sound from bubblegum-bass to dubstep and aggressive noise rock.
Dorian’s previous album, Flamboyant, deconstructed gender roles and masculine archetypes ranging from the cowboy to the sugar daddy, business mogul, and boxers/street fighters. On My Agenda, they are cranking the satire up to eleven, tackling the culture surrounding incels and gamers on tracks like “Edgelord,” featuring Rebecca Black, as well as “Gentleman,” and “M’lady.” They also hilariously unpack the sexually ambiguous homosocial dude-bro dynamic on “Sorry Bro (I Love You).”
The standout tracks are “My Agenda” featuring Village People and Pussy Riot, “F the World” with the Garden, Quay Dash, and d0llywood, and “Ram it Down,” with Mood Killer, Lil Mariko, and Lil Texas. These tracks all embody the tortuous relationships that men have with sexuality and masculinity that the patriarchy imposes upon them. “Ram it Down,” speaks from the perspective of a person who perpetuates the age-old homophobic trope of being “fine with gay people, as long as they don’t shove their sexuality in my face,” (“Hey man/Love all you want/But just don’t ram it down my throat”). The breakdown of the song, which culminates in Lil Mariko screaming, “RAM IT DOWN! RAM IT DOWN! RAM IT DOWN!” over and over again, is a sonic assault of chaotic, hard-hitting dubstep beats and death metal vocal dynamics hitting the listener over the head.
On the outstanding title track “My Agenda,” Electra reclaims all the disparaging rhetoric that straight people love to rattle off at the expense of queer people, spreading their conspiracy theories about the quote-un-quote “gay agenda.” Dorian touches on the Lavender Scare, which prevented people from hiring queer people during the Eisenhower administration (“You can always spot us/By the way we walk/As we’re plotting to take over/And destroy you all”), the AIDS crisis (“My agenda/Will infect ya”), and even those infamous InfoWars conspiracy theories about frogs (“We’re out here turning frogs homosexual”).
There are up to eleven features on this album, which can be a risk for many artists, because the guests could easily outshine the main act. However, like their collaborative pop contemporary, Charli XCX, Dorian is an excellent collaborator. These features add so much quality to the project. Mood Killer and Quay Dash are two of my favorite underground acts at the moment, and both of their verses are hilarious and deliciously fierce.
Tackling topics as grim as incels, edgelords, toxic masculinity, and homophobia is not an easy wormhole to venture into. Dorian Electra’s ability to satirize such grim subject matter and collaborate seamlessly with innovative producers and futuristic sounds makes them one of the most exciting artists of today.