After a series of EPs released in the wake of her successful self-released 2015 single, “America,” Xylø has continued with the theme of darkness that specifically pervades the United States (as a mass shooting on “Independence” Day so clearly demarcated). As someone born in L.A., Paige Duddy, who formerly comprised Xylø with her brother before it became a solo act (incidentally, Billie Eilish should have a band name as well, considering the consistent involvement of her own frère), is no stranger to artifice masking decay. And it’s something she explores as though writing a thesis on it with each composition contributing to a larger body of work. Her debut album, Unamerican Beauty, is further proof of that.
Commencing with, what else, “unamerican beauty,” Xylø builds on what she established in “America” and “American Sadness.” It’s in the latter that she bemoans, “We got history that just keeps on repeatin’/We don’t wanna believe it.” She surrenders to a more blasé attitude on “unamerican dream,” with ominous opening notes leading into a crescendoing rhythm that, at times, almost reminds one of Lana Del Rey’s “National Anthem.” Indeed, Del Rey seems to be a subtle influence on the nature of particular themes that Xylø addresses. Except, rather than shrouding the taint of Americana in Lolita-inspired love stories, Xylø goes all out in her lyrical damnations. Case in point, and while referencing the movie the title is inspired by, Xylø sarcastically condemns, “I’ll pray for you/If you pray for me/Cover me in roses/Unamerican beauty/Tell me I’m a star I got style/Pharmaceutical smile/And I’m living the fucking dream/Unamerican beauty/We got Jesus on the brain/I can dance, I can sing/And money is king.”
She doesn’t become much “gentler” on the second track, “red hot winter.” As the name suggests, there’s some climate change shade afoot as Xylø seems to curse all billionaires with the lines, “I hope that we see the new year/Costs the world to get to space/Burn your money, fan the flames/You always get what you want/And you make it look so easy/Tell me what it’s like/Being happy.” And “being happy” in America always means having “gobs of money.” Pursued and sucked down with the same fervent interest as hamburgers by the hoi polloi. Except they’ll never have enough to stand a chance in this country, to compete with the likes of the Elon Musks and Jeff Bezoses of the rigged game. Rigged to entrap ordinary people into the endless cycle of capitalism that will be their undoing, namely via climate change. Hence, Xylø remarking, “It’s a beautiful day/For the end of the world/It’s a red hot winter.”
Transitioning into her most Allie X-sounding vocals yet, “something to cry about” delves into the unique form of masochism that Americans have learned to love. Or maybe just “accept” and “not know any better” about as they actually appear to relish tragedy porn with an insatiable thirst. How else can one explain the continued sustainment of the 24/7 news model? And, like Allie X on her last album, Cape God, Xylø is unabashed about exploring the macabre, sadomasochism-loving tendencies of the (American) human psyche. Hence her announcement, “I’m the dark horse/A semi-automatic smile/If it’s bad for me/Then I want it/If it’s a tragedy/Yeah I want it/And if you lie to me/Then you know that’s how I like it ‘cause/Only like it ‘cause/‘Cause it really hurts.”
The earnest and accusatory intonations of fellow L.A.-area denizen BANKS are also omnipresent throughout the record, with echoes of BANKS’ recent album, Serpentina, shining through. Especially on “aliens” (yet another song for the general canon that obsesses over extraterrestrials), wherein she uses the speculated-about beings as an allegory for merely being different in a society that still prefers everyone to fit into a convenient cookie-cutter mold. While MARINA said, “All my friends are witches,” Xylø insists, “All my friends are aliens/We smoke the same weed but we don’t look the same, no/And we get dressed up, but we’re going nowhere/We’re so lost, we don’t care.” And why would anyone, in an environment like this? One in which no value is put on humanity or art, but all things related to profit margins and “what can you afford?” If it’s nothing, then you’ll likely find yourself saying the same thing as Xylø: “I’ll find my place/In outer space.” Except that you won’t, because even that’s been reserved for billionaires and the celebrity cabal as well.
But at least a “sugar free rush” (a.k.a. drogas) is free… for those who go to the right party. Inviting us in with elegant instrumentals, the track segues into an uptempo, pulsing beat that, again, mirrors something from the BANKS oeuvre. Xylø then freely admits, “I take something to change my mood/It’s not FDA-approved/Meet me at ten, I’m on the Westside/We can get high with your high school friends/They can bore me/Half to dеath/Giving me tips on the stock market.” It’s the mention of these boring high school friends that eventually prompts the all-too-appropriate sample from Trisha Paytas, “What? Oh ha-ha…okay.”
Showing off how much growing up in Los Angeles has colored her worldview, “starfucker” speaks from the perspective of someone willing to do anything to get ahead in the [insert entertainment specialization here] industry. With its dramatic acoustic interpolations, Xylø captures the “at wit’s end” vibe of many an aspirant as she reflects, “I’ve done the right thing over and over again/And all I got was a pool full of tears/Maybe I should swim with the sharks/Get lost in the dark, then I’ll shine like a star.” In addition to being tailor-made for the actual show called Swimming With Sharks, “starfucker” acknowledges the impossibility of getting ahead in a country that prides itself on short cuts and mediocrity—Hollywood being a highly representative embodiment of that American (un)reality.
With an Imogen Heap à la “Hide and Seek” intro, “family politics” has all the trappings of a Tove Lo song during those initial verses. Ones that rue, “Every single day that I’m alive/I’m just happy I survived/To tell the tale of you and I/I learned the hard way what is love/A brother joined by blood/Who I don’t see anymore/And every time you spoke every single word/Every syllable hurt, was a twist of the knife.” But as the song progresses, Xylø eventually assures, “Everything’s gonna be fine.” That seems highly debatable, at least on a global level. And when things are not “fine” globally, it’s only a matter of time before that reality comes to roost locally (see: COVID-19, and probably monkeypox). Further addressing the notion of putting all one’s feelings into a romantic relationship that’s likely to backfire, Xylø asserts in the bridge, “Time takes the sting away but the rest of it stays/So watch what you say to the ones that you love.” Too late for Christopher Ciccone on that front.
The upbeat “sweetheart,” once again produced by Lee Newell, puts a positive (and slightly vindictive) spin on heartbreak as Xylø goads the one who did her wrong, “Broken heart in a skin-tight black dress/I can look good through the madness/I don’t play nice like I did before, before/You had me on a leash and you liked that/These puppy dog eyes now bite back (ruff)/I don’t play nice like I did before, before.” With a message that screams, “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me,” one wishes that we could all be as shrewd as Xylø in learning from our mistakes in a failed relationship so quickly.
Alluding to fucking the pain of living in America away on “one bedroom apartment,” Xylø paints a grim picture with a Mø-esque sonic landscape. Via the chorus, she cuts to the quick with what it means to become numb to all day, every day insanity, singing, “Come to my one bedroom apartment/There’s only one thing we can do/So kiss me while we listen/To the gunshots in the distance/I don’t know the feeling of silencе anymore/Woman and babies are crying nеxt door.” Throughout the song, Xylø also references that the shock of these types of events are no longer so shocking ever since she left the gates of her suburban cocoon. And yet, as Highland Park has freshly reminded us, even suburbia isn’t immune to the outright American nightmare.
Seeming to take some inspiration from Pam and Tommy, “home video” finds Xylø bragging, “I’m a 90s baby, I still got a VHS/You should come over right now, we can put it to the test.” Narrating about what it would be like to engage in all those “freaky” things, she urges her “director,” “Tell me I look pretty, look at me through your lens/Hide the tape when you get home, don’t show your friends/We can watch a clip, take a sip, no script, your flesh on my lips.”
But sometimes it really is a challenge to feel sexual in a joint like Amérique, as Xylø again makes evident on what is among the most political offerings of Unamerican Beauty, “don’t let them change you babygirl.” Pointing out what can only be obvious to even the most “dazed” of denizens, Xylø declares, “Don’t listen to them, just look at this place/You’ll never be free in the USA/So come out tonight and dance with me/‘Cause you’re right where you’re meant to be.” Even if no one is really meant to be in a place so patently fucked-up while pretending to be “the greatest.” And part of the territory that goes with that “greatness” is the “freedom” that comes with driving. Even if that has been reined in of late due to gas prices. Enter the denouement to Unamerican Beauty, “driving (sonata 2011),” which, at times, becomes an unwitting homage to the message of J. G. Ballard’s Crash, in that the human has melded with the mechanical to the point where there’s scarcely a distinction. This is made manifest in Xylø’s admission, “This seatbelt is the closest I’ve felt to real arms around me.” But who needs “real” anything when you’ve got a car?
Like Maria in Play It As It Lays, Xylø turns to driving as a kind of therapy—even if an environmentally-damaging one. So it is that she sings, “I never liked Sundays, but I don’t know what day it is when I’m driving/It’s getting late, but I’ll go a little further/You know I, I never think about that time when/My house burned down, but I do when I’m driving.” The notion that driving allows for the sort of “blankness” (in Repo Man, it was said simply that driving makes you dumb) to allow the mind to wander is something only a quintessential California girl could accurately comment on. And, speaking of California girls, Xylø mirrors Billie Eilish when she said, “Hills burn in California” with her own version of that description: “Ashes falling from the sky in L.A.”
The irony is that driving has contributed to that severity in extreme climate conditions. Nonetheless, no one can seem to give up that last vestige of “American beauty,” with even Xylø insisting, “I think I’ll keep this car forever, the stereo sounds so fucking good/Don’t know when I’ll be arriving, so I’ll keep on driving.”
To that end, the cover of her album (along with the various slightly alternate single covers that were created) features Xylø standing on her “mark” with a projected backdrop of an Anywhere, USA type of neighborhood (many of which do, indeed, exist in the suburban sprawl of California) behind her. And unlike Madonna in the “Don’t Tell Me” video wielding a similar effect, there is nothing romantic or jubilant about the statement this visual is making. One that reminds us that everything we’ve ever thought and felt about the “American dream” was built on Hollywood-inspired illusion.
