Sir Babygirl’s ‘Crush on Me’ is Eminently Crush-worthy

From Janelle Monáe's "Dirty Computer" to Troye Sivan's "Bloom" and King Princess's "Pussy is God," "20GayTeen," as Hayley Kiyoko (aka "Lesbian Jesus") dubbed it, felt like a watershed year for queer pop music. If Kelsie Hogue's debut album as Sir Babygirl, "Crush on Me," is any indicator, "20BiTeen" is already off to a promising start. Hogue, who identifies as bisexual and non-binary, makes experimental bubblegum-with-bite pop reminiscent of a cross between some of the great BGLTQ pop music of the past year — think Kiyoko meets SOPHIE — and yet wholly original. “Crush on Me” is a luminous debut, glowing with the light of a new star in the pop cosmos.

Hogue’s name might sound familiar: The BU theater grad previously performed in the Allston music scene, fronting groups like noise rock group Leigh Cheri. While Hogue’s current sound is quite different, her music has a punk verve and a thrilling energy. “Crush on Me” opens with Hogue’s stunning debut single “Heels,” a dazzling DIY disco track that brings to mind the early work of Hogue’s Father/Daughter Records labelmate Shamir. The track is lyrically and sonically inventive from the wry chorus (“I'm running home with my heels on my head… Lights shine brighter when there's tears in your eyes / I guess that's a nice surprise”) to the anthemic bridge (“You don't know me anymore / I changed my hair,” its last line repeated three times like incantation). The bridge is evocatively followed by a wordless cry straddling the line between the ecstatic and tragic.

That space between the heights of joy and the depths of sorrow is one that Hogue returns to repeatedly in her music. In “Flirting with Her,” Hogue captures the exhilaration and torment of a crush. From the wonderfully over-the-top opening lines “Flirting with her is like butterflies screaming / Taking off into the night” Hogue builds a series of similes that evoke the feeling of first being interested in someone all over an early-00’s style pop punk guitar line. On the bridge, Hogue physically captures the all-consuming intensity of flirting in the lines, “She left her name on my lips / I don’t think I’ll ever get over her hips / Or ever feel like anything else exists / When she texts me ‘hey.’” Even the experiences that words can’t quite capture, Hogue manages to express too — the bridge concludes with a perfect wail of agony.

This idea that to flirt is to flirt with risk is further explored in “Haunted House.” The track perfectly captures the nightmarish quality of so many house parties. Hogue sings with ironic glee in the chorus, “This party's just another haunted house / I can't wait to lose all my friends tomorrow … I can't wait to carry it with me forever.” Over strings and shimmering, upbeat synth’s Hogue winds her way through this house of horrors becoming increasingly inebriated (“One step in and I’m three drinks deep / watering that big secret I keep,”) and isolated (“no one knows the difference from my laughter and my screams”) only to be caught flat-footed by desire in the bridge. In capturing the bewildering, overwhelming experience of a party, this track is a near-perfect anthem for the socially anxious and ambivalent.

The album concludes with the title track and self-described outro which is part mumbled bubblegum and part sweetly-silly sketch about self-love. “So...uh...I have a new crush,” Hogue coyly confesses. She continues, “uh, it’s on me...I’m not tryna...project too much into the future but I do have a good feeling about this one.” The same could be said for Hogue’s pop career, which is deservedly taking off with this delightful debut.

—Staff writer A.J. Cohn can be reached at adam.cohn@thecrimson.com.