Doja Cat – Scarlet

Kate Karvelis

I used to be a major Doja Cat fan. This album feels like a total letdown. The promotion for this album was not promising, and set me up to not like this album. Most of the promotion was her tweeting angry things. Tweeting she hates her fanbase, tweeting she hates her old music, tweeting she “doesn’t care about what anyone is saying”. Which is important to add, that if you have to tell people you don’t care, it means you actually care, very very much. 

 

While listening, it very much seems that she put out this album just for the sake of putting out an album. Pitchfork reported that this album was a lot about Doja proving herself as a rapper, and as so she had no features. Because of this, the album falls flat. She does have a great producer, as what I liked from many of these songs was the beat and production aspects. 

 

Doja’s online promotion of the album was a lot about how she “hates making corporate music”, and this album sounds similar to everything else she has done. I feel that if she is going to put out so much ‘talk’ about doing something totally different with this album, she should! It’s part of the reason this album falls flat for me, it’s supposed to be a new album, and it wasn’t. 

On a lighter note- I think my favorite track ended up being Skull and Bones. It was catchy, and was the edgy vibe Doja wanted to put out. I liked the production, and her rapping (one of the only songs that I liked both her singing, and the beat). However, I don’t see myself listening to this album a second time. The only song I’ve listened to more than once is Paint the Town Red (and I think it’s going to stay that way). 

Doja wanted this album to be all about “proving herself”, and it did the exact opposite. Whoever wrote the lyrics, did an awful job. She uses a lot of ‘trendy’ terms, which were trendy 3 years ago. This really dates the album, and not in a good way. It also makes her seem more like an industry plant- something she has been furiously tweeting she isn’t.

Favorite Track- Skull and Bones

Album Score- 0 spiders/ 5 spiders