Sidecar Records & Producer Entertainment Group
Electronic, 2015

The seventh season of RuPaul’s Drag Race was easily the biggest dud of the show to date, and a big reason for this is the presence of drag queens that are mostly scraped free of personality. Only the drag queen known as Katya is halfway memorable, while poor Ginger Minj arrived too close on the heels of Bianca Del Rio, and was seriously second-rate as a result of people keep comparing her to the winner of the previous season. In the end, Violet Chachki won the season. It’s hard to argue with that decision, given her impeccable and intelligent sense of style, but still, the poor dear has to be the most unmemorable winner to date. I have to admit, though, her debut single Bettie and the accompanying music video are both awesome.

And then we have Pearl. In addition to having the bulk of the most irrational, immature, and vile fans to date, she also sleepwalked her way to the top three without anything memorable to show for it. Her fashion aesthetics were completely overshadowed by Ms Chachki, and her acting skills… well, there were ups and downs. Her lip syncs were lackluster, and her “too cool for the show, let me whine some more” attitude grated to the point that it felt wrong to see her in the top three. Still, she didn’t win, so all is still good in the land.

So, this brings us to Pleasure, Pearl’s debut “EDM album”, which her fans insisted would revolutionize music. That’s actually hilarious, because this is a collection of very generic EDM tunes that personify the meaning of the word “anonymous”. A bulk of the tracks feel very clichéd and even familiar, and given how often producers in the scene often sample and modify preexisting loops to create their music, I wondered at first whether our sleepy-eyed entitled darling here was just trying too hard to imitate her betters by borrowing things unimaginatively and wholesale.

What do I know, someone claimed on the Reddit page dedicated to that show:

So as I stan, I purchased Pearl’s album, and as I was listening to Hustler (the best track the album imo) and The Club Goes Pop, I had this unshakable feeling that I’ve heard them before, either in a sample or something. then it hit me, as a music producer myself, when I was starting up I used Magix Music Maker and it’s loops and soundpools to make my music, and then I opened up my old desktop and went through the soundpools and whaddya know, the vocals for Hustler and The Club Goes Pop are actually vocal loops. So I was like hmmmm I wonder if Pearl used any other loops from Magix… and as I listened to the album carefully and went through all the loops, I can confirm that +50% of the album is from Magix Music Maker Loops for beginners. plsdon’tkillme

Oh, that has me laughing so hard for a while there.

Still, I can’t say that Pearl is wrong or dumb. She has savvy – putting the photo of her out of drag is sheer genius as the bulk of her lunatic fans are weirdos who think that they have a chance of sleeping with the out of drag version of her. Besides, there’s no harm in milking crazy fans for every cent they have, as fame can be fleeting, especially for “artists” whose fanbase turn them into laughingstock due to their online antics – just ask Lady Gaga. Better work those crazies and make that money today!