by Sam Snider, KANM DJ

I’d consider myself a self proclaimed left-pop connoisseur. I grew up on Walk the Moon, Aqua, and Scissor Sisters, and have voluntarily sunk hours of my life into listening to Marina and Charli xcx. 

I will listen to any variation on pop music: bubble gum pop, electronic pop, psychedelic pop, folk pop, dance pop, EDM and so on. So for the purposes of this article I will make myself the authority on pop music. As an authority on pop music I will gladly say that Dorian Electra’s album Flamboyant is the finest hyperpop album . 

Flamboyant is beautifully queer, Genderfluid, and campy all at once. It is the perfect album if you want to be angry at the patriarchy, love to embrace masculinity, femininity, and genderqueer madness, love to scream, or generally love your music to make your heart race and make your wrist limp (that's a gay culture reference FYI). 

I absolutely loved Electra's new album, My agenda, but I felt a way more personal connection to Flamboyant. You can feel the blood sweat and tears that were put into this album, and the risk that was put into creating this album. In 2019, even though that doesn’t feel that long ago, it was way more risky to put in any sort of overtly gay or trans themes into media. Most songs made by queer artists just 4 years ago were from King princess, Kim Petras, Troye Sivan, Hayley Kiyoko, Adam Lambert, Janelle Monet, or Halsey, which is a small percentage of music being made at the time. And for the most part these artists wanted to keep the songs low-key and are in more accessible genres. So Electra's bold and openly queer album in a time where it was far less popular than it is now and is very refreshing and borderline ground breaking. 

I encourage you to listen to Dorian Electra’s music, it’s exciting hyper pop with a message and that uses irreverent humor and old ideas to create new stories. A great example of this is the song “Career boy”. The music video and song use the idea of working in an office job and makes it into a humorous story on being addicted to the impossible standards and the life draining work that usually entails. I would definitely recommend watching the music video when you give this song a listen, it really adds to the story. 

Dorian Electra’s adoption of a hyper masculine character makes a comical statement on toxic masculinity and that sometimes this masculinity that is used to maybe even appear less gay can come right back around and give off incredibly gay vibes. You can listen to any song on

Flamboyant and find this theme, “Flamboyant”, “Man to man”, “Adam and steve”, “Guyliner”, and so on. Overall hyperpop as a genre needs people like Dorian Electra, people who make the genre that may be less accessible more listenable through relatable messages and humor. If you want music that will make you scream your heart out singing, rave like there’s no tomorrow, laugh until your stomach aches, and make your struggles feel seen, you may agree with me and decide that Flamboyant by Dorian Electra is the best album in the hyperpop genre.

Listen to Sam Snider on Song-artist Shout-outs with Sam, 4 pm Saturdays on KANM.org