Lets be perfectly honest – if something hits my inbox with the “Hot Singles In Your Area” as the title, it is generally some sort of spam that shouldn’t be opened. Its not going to end with anything worthwhile. Luckily, the debut effort from Scene Queen (real name Hannah Collins) hasn’t received the same treatment. The record is laden with nu-metal style riffs but while the genre was rife with misogyny, Collins has flipped the script. “18+” for example calls out the music scene for the way it brushes abuse under the carpet – a known issue that is seen to go away with a well written Instagram post. While she falls short of naming said band it is blatantly obvious the target – if you’re part of the pop-punk scene you will have seen bras hanging from the mic stands… hell, I’ve photographed it.
That isn’t the only ire that is raised about the music business – the way female artists are treated at venues is raised on Mutual Masturbation. While it might be easy to brush Scene Queen off as a heavy metal Barbie doll -hot pink revealing stage attire and a mix between screaming, melodic singing and spoken – the content of the tracks are full of scathing attacks on the music scene, deep dives into sexuality and female empowerment. In the early 2000s where some of this music is routed you would dismiss Scene Queen as a novelty act, thankfully we have moved on in two decades but obviously not far enough. There has been a need for someone to speak out on the abusive nature of the music industry. Scene Queen doesn’t speak out – she screams it.
“Hot Singles In Your Area” is never going to be everyones cup of tea, but to take a line from Knives Out: Glass Onion – she’s a disruptor. I have had to stop myself singing along to Wargasm collaboration “Girls Gone Wild” lest I have to explain to my wife (or children) why I am singing “If I had a Dick I’d be dangerous” at the top of my lungs. At one point I thought the title track of the album was going to break into a standard love song – before being bludgeoned by an incredibly filthy downtuned guitar.
The debut album from Scene Queen is a genre bending triumph. The more I listen the most subtleties I notice. “MILF” goes country, there is rap, pop besides various iterations of metal. Even with the cover, a take on pop up adds of the early 2000s that advertised the same thing as the album title, you don’t expect 15 tracks of angst and aggression. Collins has started strong but this definitely isn’t the “Climax” of her work.