Kim Petras - "Feed the Beast"
It needs more foreplay, but it gets there in time
Kim Petras is a German pop star who has been building toward her debut album for several years now, dropping EPs since 2011 and singles since 2017. And several singles have hit the Billboard and other top music charts.
She’s also already seen controversy on two fronts. First, one of her producers is Dr Luke, who is best known, nowadays, for his alleged physical and sexual abuse of Ke$ha. Dr Luke has production credits on this album and Problematique.1
Second, of course, is the fact that Petras is a Trans woman at a time in which many find that identity to be contentious, at best; especially in the US, where transphobia is at an all-time high. But nothing on Feed the Beast addresses any of this. Anywhere. It is a straightforward pop album with strong sex-positive motifs.2
Feed the Beast, as an album, is a bright and boppy affair which rarely takes itself, or anything, seriously. It’s clearly meant to be a fun, sexy album. And while opening/title track, “Feed the Beast”, and the subsequent duet with Nicki Minaj, “Alone”, are both ultimately forgettable, the album starts to improve after that, hitting its stride by about tracks five and six, “uhoh” and “Revelations”.
The album regularly pulls in electronic elements, but isn’t fully electropop at any point, though “Castle in the Sky” comes close; that same track is also the most “bubblegum”, as a friend of mine described Petras’ sound.3
Ultimately, the album takes forty minutes to play all the way through. The final track is a bonus track featuring Petras — Sam Smith’s “Unholy”, which is still one of the best pop singles from this year (or last; I don’t recall exactly when this one dropped as a single). I’m still somewhat put out over this version; I swear there was a version without Petras that just let Sam be gay, but it’s a bit more palatable now that it’s clearly just the community supporting itself with a bit of GT crossover action.4
If the album were a bit stronger in the first third, it might be something legitimate as a unit, because the last two-thirds is fire. As it is, though, it’s just “good”.
Rating: Green
As much as I’m not thrilled by this, I do not have any indication as to how much power Petras has over who her producers are. Further (and we all know this is nothing to make any final judgments by), Ke$ha’s allegations were never proven, and her final statement on the matter was that her memory of the details of that night were fuzzy: “Only God knows what happened that night.”
For those who are unclear on this phrasing, “sex-positive” basically means merely acknowledging that sex is a normal aspect of life and that nobody should be shamed for having sex, casual or otherwise.
Given the number of albums already on my list releasing in September, I had to be convinced to take on the two Petras albums.
I was unaware of exactly who Petras was when reviewing Smith’s album earlier this year.