Today, Philadelphia indie punk band Mannequin Pussy share “Perfect,” the title track from their upcoming EP due out May 21. The track follows previously released “Control,” which graced “Best New Songs” lists for Entertainment Weekly, Fader, Guitar World, NPR, Paste, Pitchfork, Stereogum, and more.
CHECK OUT “PERFECT”
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“Perfect” comes out of months of social isolation & internet-fueled anxiety, examining the practice of condensing your daily life into a manicured stream of images for social media. “Last year, I found myself spending more time on my phone than I ever had in my life. Physically separate from other people, I spent hours of time watching other humans perform on my rectangle. I realised that through years of social media training, many of us have grown this deep desire to manicure our lives to look as perfect, as aspirational as possible,” explains the band’s vocalist/guitarist Missy on the inspiration behind the track. “We want to put ourselves out there, share our lives, our stories, our day to day – and these images and videos all shout the same thing: ‘Please look at me, please tell me I’m so perfect.’ It’s simultaneously a declaration of our confidence but edged with the desperation that seeks validation from others.”
Mannequin Pussy are ready to take you to the Sugarbush High 10-year Reunion in the music video for the track. The video, directed by the band’s vocalist/guitarist Missy, references the 1997 comedy film “Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion.”
Check it out here.
At the start of 2020, everything was looking up for Mannequin Pussy. The band had released their third album, Patience, and was touring steadily behind it. After nearly a decade of playing, the band finally had gotten the chance to turn music into a full-time occupation. And then, COVID-19 reached the United States, rescinding life as many people knew it. For a while, it seemed like maybe the lull would be temporary, a brief pause before things could resume as they were. And then the numbers ballooned, and the months stretched on, and memories of rooms packed with strangers started to feel alien, dangerous even in imagination. Mannequin Pussy’s new Perfect EP bursts forth from those sprawling months of social isolation and internet-fueled anxiety.
After spending most of the year apart from each other and everyone else in 2020, Mannequin Pussy decided to book studio time and work together in person again. They brought two pre-written songs into the session, but opted to write new material together on the fly from the excitement of reunion. “We just figured if we forced ourselves into this situation where someone could hit ‘record,’ something might come out,” Missy says. “We’d never written that way before.” What came out of that compressed session time with Grammy Nominated producer Will Yip, are some of Mannequin Pussy’s most furious, incandescent songs yet.
Mannequin Pussy is Missy (vocals/guitar/keys), Colins “Bear” Regisford (bass), and Kaleen Reading (drums).
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