King Princess (2025)

One Liner: Gritty pop music reminds me of cleaner Billie Eilish, dirtier Maggie Rogers.

Wikipedia Genre: Pop
Home: Brooklyn

Poster Position: Top Quarter - Line 4
Day: Friday
Both Weekends.

Thoughts: Last here in 2019, but I don't think I did the show.  Or at least I don't recall it!  High position on the poster for something that doesn't feel like it has a big footprint in the world, but that also shows you how well I travel in the circles of pop music.  Also surprising?  It's really good.  Her name makes me think of Super Mario Brothers for some reason, despite there not being a character in that game named King Princess.  When you could play with Princess Peach though, in like Mario 2 or 3, and her ass could fly for a lil' bit?  That ruled.  I'm sure she is in Super Smash Bros as well, but that game is annoying because I always get my ass whipped.

Real name is Mikaela Mullaney Straus and she was born in Brooklyn.  Not one of these carpetbaggers coming to town for the cool, she was born there.  Weird factoid from her Wikipedia - her grandparents (maybe great-great grandparents or something, this is not clear) died in the sinking of the Titanic.  He may have also co-owned Macy's, although Mikaela says she didn't inherit a fortune.

Anyway, her dad was a sound engineer at Mission Studio.  She spent years with her dad in the studio, watching him work as a recording engineer.  She also learned bass, guitar, piano, and drums in the studio, as well as production techniques.  Pretty handy way to grow up!  Her initial single, "1950," is by far her most popular, due in part to Harry Styles tweeting a lyric from it.  591.4 million streams for that one.

Freaking beautiful song.  Although, I have to admit that the first few listens, I thought her cut off phrasing of "for you" in the chorus was a kiss off of "fuck you" instead.  Which big time changes the message of the song.  Not a kiss off at all, just a lovely love song.  Also, though the extended phrasing on "tell me why my guuyuuuuyuuuuuyyuuuu-ods look like you" was actually "guys look like you," which is also another message.

She has a cover of "Femme Fatale" among her songs available on Spotify, and while most will obviously identify that as the Velvet Underground, that song is still an R.E.M. song to me because of the cover I heard off of Chronic Town/Dead Letter Office long before I knew who Velvet Underground even was.  It's a nice cover here too.  She covered "Dirty Work" for Hacks too, which is a great tune.

She also has a song called "Pussy Is God," so there's that.

Her second most streamed is one called "Talia," released in 2018 after "1950."  Both of these also made it onto her EP from 2018, called "Make My Bed."  "Talia" has 132.4 million streams.

She's super in love with that doll!  That song is OK - not nearly as good as the first one.  Also, kind of sad, with the need to drink enough to see her friend.  Can definitely see the crowd at ACL learning when to yell "BUT FOUR DRINKS I'M WASTED!"

Two albums - 2019's Cheap Queen and 2022's Hold On Baby.  I must have published my 2019 review prior to Cheap Queen being released, because I don't mention it and never reviewed it otherwise.  The top track on there is "Ain't Together" with 40.2 million streams.

Okay, that has a Japanese Breakfast/soccer mommy kinda vibe.  Nice.  Her cover for that album was doing the Chappell Roan freaky makeup thing long before Chappell Roan was playing state fairs.  "Isabel's Moment" and "Hit the Back" kind of remind me of Adele for bits, although the latter turns into a dance party after the slow intro.  She got another boost from Harry when he named her to be the opener for a chunk of his 2020 tour, and then got named to play Saturday Night Live at the end of 2019.  Since then, she's continued to open for kick ass things - Kacey Musgraves, Chili Peppers - and do her own tours as well.

2022's Hold On Baby - when this one started, I legitimately thought that it was a new St. Vincent song.  "I Hate Myself, I Want to Party" and "For My Friends" are the two tracks that stick out to me as being really solid here.  But "Little Bother" has slightly more streams than "For My Friends," so I'll let you try that one on.  9.3 million streams.

Nice harmonies, kind of makes me think of Lucius.  "Let Us Die," the final song, is also a good one.  While it is always surprising for me to dig on pop, I really enjoy this one.

The tunes kind of make me think of this current moment in pop, with stars like the 1975 and Maggie Rogers making this sort of rock-feeling pop that doesn't actually lean on guitars but has the heft of a rock style.  I'm shocked to like this one so much, but I actually do.  I might go try this one out.