Doja Cat’s “Scarlet” Album Review
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Doja Cat’s new album, Scarlet, released on September 22, 2023, showcasing Doja retiring her Pop-Star reputation and conquering a rapper title.
In her new album, she reveals to the public that she can rap and explores all levels of rap. Starting with “Paint the Town Red” sampling “Walk On By” by Dionne Warwick, Doja Cat preaches about her recent attitude, saying, “I said what I said, I’d rather be famous instead. I let all that get to my head. I don’t care, I paint the town red.” She dismisses her critics and asserts her own identity to the public.
Along with her attitude, she completely changes her character by shaving off her hair and eyebrows to show a more masculine side. She appears as an eerie presence in her music video, “Demons” in which she appears as a demon creeping over a family. “Demons” was released as a third single, promoting Scarlet, and it explored a darker tone contrasting against her previous work.
Due to her new appearance, the internet went berserk on Doja Cat. Sophomore Amata Morris stated, “I don’t like [her style] at all. I mean, she can do what she wants to do. If you believe that you don’t need hair, then you don’t need hair.” Morris shares how she does not enjoy Doja’s style, calling it traumatizing and scary.
After “Red” and “Demons,” the album follows a message of fame. Scarlet bounces around from genre to genre, keeping an inconsistent pattern. From a dreamy love song to an aggressive message to her critics, Doja explains that the music industry is not something that it seems.
“Agora Hills” was written to be a love song but also a song about agoraphobia. From the lyrics, “I wanna show you off, I wanna brag about it,” Doja preaches about wanting to show off her current boyfriend and fighting social anxiety. She also mentions, “Baby, can you call me back? I miss you. It’s so lonely in my mansion,” then returns to the chorus of wanting to show her boyfriend off to the world.
Following “Agora Hills,” Doja keeps a section of the album dedicated to her lover. “Often” and “Love Life” are gratitude songs about her life. She goes into depth about her life and expresses it throughout the album.
Then, Doja demolished her love songs by silencing her critics.
Before releasing Scarlet, Doja Cat released her controversial single, “Attention,” a message about how the world revolves around fame and attention. In an Instagram Live, Doja stated, “‘Attention’ is not really a song, it’s more a piece. It’s a message, it’s not really supposed to be replayed, but I thought it would be a nice thing to start off the rollout with.” Doja confronted the world about their addiction to fame.
Parker Scuffham, a sophomore attending Northwest High School, states, “The world kind of does revolve around fame because there are just some people that need or want that attention, and the best way to do that is to be famous.” Scuffham goes on to compare the Kardashians wanting fame and money as well.
After the controversial “Attention,” “Balut” came in to show the rebirth of herself, showing a more masculine side. She also dismisses rumors about her.
Overall, Doja Cat wanted to expose the world and their desire for attention. She also wanted to disprove her critics who said she couldn’t rap.
Although Scarlet is misunderstood by the public, Doja has fun and wants to show the world what she is capable of.