Crush on Me
The pseudonymme of DIY pop diva/producer Kelsie Hogue, Sir Babygirl mixes and matches inspirations as sundry as Charli XCX, Hole, Hey Arnold!, and Tim And Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! into unabashedly bubblegum, unashamedly queer pop for a future free of genre boundary and the gender binary. Born in Silicon Valley and raised in Hanover, New Hampshire, Sir Babygirl collected slumber party guests in the form of the bass, piano, guitar, along with formally studying voice. After attending Boston University’s School of Theater, she began to synthesize all her interests in the local Allston scene—fronting a hardcore bubblegum band, collaborating with local musicians, and tinkering with self-production on demos that would lead her to Sir Babygirl project. Sir Babygirl quickly swapped diploma for a microphone to explore Chicago’s DIY and comedy scenes, but was ultimately visited in a dream by pop princesses Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and dear departed high priestess Whitney Houston. The three divinities implored: pop was the pure plastic expression and cartoon catharsis for which Sir Babygirl was meant. She returned home to the woods of New Hampshire to convert her childhood bedroom into a makeshift studio. Little by little, she applied her sharpening musical tools to emerging past selves, childhood traumas, and a joyous curiosity for herself. Sir Babygirl chronicled each revelation in song, reclaiming and celebrating all the deep dives, detours, and divas that led her to her debut album Crush on Me. Crush on Me dances through discovery—from opener and debut single “Heels,” which sets Sir Babygirl as a bewildered, bisexual Cinderella bailing on the ball, all the way to the gentle self-courting of the closing title track. Along the way, Sir Babygirl rages through the agony and ecstasy of queer flirting (“Flirting with Her”), peels past layers of latent shame (“Cheerleader”), parties with old ghosts (“Haunted House”), trudges through social anxieties (“Everyone is a Bad Friend”), and basks in the glow of neon-lit nights out (“Pink Lite”). On the other side of the journey, Crush on Me ultimately celebrates the silliness and sanctity of a second adolescence, a rite so quintessential to the queer coming-of-age experience. Imagine Karen O performing Robyn’s “Dancing On My Own” with Courtney Love strumming the synth line… or maybe a Max Martin-produced cover of Lauryn Hill’s “Ex-Factor” performed by My Chemical Romance’s Gerard Way. Wrap it all up in an aesthetic that marries Grimes to Ashlee Simpson in the uncanny valley of celebrity culture and neo-Absurdism. Somewhere out there, in between a girl group and a boyband, is Sir Babygirl… and her pug Baby Diva. Along her journey, she has discovered the sugar-rush sweet spot between melodic emo confessionalism, cartoon character plastic-is-fantastic vocals, and PC music-adjacent synthpop fantasia. That place is real, and its lord is our knight Sir Babygirl. Crush on Me will be released February 15, 2019 on Father/Daughter Records.
Kelsie Hogue’s debut album is likely to be among the year’s most extra albums, but behind its excitable homage to Britney and “TRL” lies an even more intriguing spin on ’90s alternative.