In early April, JoJo Siwa debuted a glaringly different new look: She showed up at the iHeartRadio Awards in a black and silver superhero-esque costume with makeup that made her look like she was in a Kiss cover band. Gone were her signature hair bows and her blindingly colorful outfits. For all intents and purposes, Siwa was kicking off her own Reputation era — even channeling the dark palette from Taylor Swift’s sixth studio album, which has become synonymous with rebellion. It was supposed to be an “edgier,” more “mature” rebrand — and as she teased in the lyrics of her reintroduction single, “Karma,” she wanted to prove that she had evolved into a “bad girl.”
Of course, it wasn’t exactly a smooth transition. In the lead-up to “Karma,” an Auto-Tuned dance-pop number teeming with relationship regret, the Dance Moms alum faced incessant backlash over allegedly co-opting the track from Miley Cyrus (she denied it). Then came the accompanying music video, where she emerged from the ocean like a sea monster and dry-humped another woman. It was less “edgy” and more, in a broader sense of the creative, conceptually “cringe.”
With her new EP, Guilty Pleasure, Siwa strives to flip her image and share a more authentic, queer version of herself. But it’s never been an easy feat for child stars to make a radical revamp. As artists like Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato, the Jonas Brothers, and Miley Cyrus (whose Bangerz era is what Siwa cited during her own transformation) transitioned into adulthood, they often opted for a certain “shock” factor and hypersexualized image to transform the public’s perception of them. (Who can forget when Cyrus twerked with Robin Thicke and a foam finger at the 2013 VMAs?)
However, Siwa is struggling here. That may be in part because of a few missteps she’s had leading up to the release of Guilty Pleasure. Siwa drew criticism for saying that she’d invented “gay pop,” a comment she eventually walked back. With Guilty Pleasure, she does not invent an entire genre, but she does add to pop music’s queer canon. The five-track project will likely be featured, sampled, and remixed by DJs in gay clubs for the next decade, among a litany of “gay pop” artists like Kesha, Lady Gaga, and Lil Nas X. Still, a lot of the music lacks the exact authenticity Siwa seems to crave.
Co-written by Meghan Trainor and DJ White Shadow, the EP’s title and focus track “Guilty Pleasure” isn’t exactly personal, but it’s a somewhat promising, bombastic electro-pop number that offers more pop personality in its music video, which is Siwa’s irrefutably camp “Guilty Pleasure House.” (In it, she sports bedazzled teddy bears on her head and throws around power tools in sequin-emblazoned construction wear.) “Balance Baby,” however, is meant to flaunt Siwa’s brand of provocative versatility (“I like twirlin’ in a ballroom, twerkin’ in the bedroom/Switch it on the daily, I got balance, baby”), but it lands as something manufactured for a RuPaul’s Drag Race challenge.
On “Yesterday’s Tomorrow’s Today,” Siwa attempts to embrace the “carpe diem” mentality in what feels like a pop parody. “Yesterday’s tomorrow’s today/Before you know it, you’ll be dead/Or at best, you’ll be old and gray/Yesterday’s tomorrow’s today,” she sings over a confounding sea shanty melody. “Choose UR Fighter” is the most sonically compelling track on the EP, as Siwa chases after a propulsive new-wave sound and reflects on her missteps in choosing past lovers without sugarcoating the way she feels about them: “Some of my exes are ugly/Some of my exes are vain/Some of ’em held me like heaven/But pleasure don’t make up the pain.”
But overall, Guilty Pleasure is less a rebrand and more Siwa’s identity crisis — an attempt to claw her way out of child stardom like many before her have needed to navigate. For now, she’s stuck in the awkward space of pleasing herself and appeasing her fans.
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