Ethel Cain's Perverts is going to alienate a lot of fans. That's the point

Up until a few years ago, Ethel Cain was predominantly an underground indie artist. Then came her 2022 breakout hit American Teenager. 

The song went viral online, to the point that it wound up on one of Obama's lists, it was covered by Gracie Abrams, and Taylor Swift even put it on one of her pre-show playlists. 

But with that success came a lot of attention that Cain wasn't quite prepared for. Now, with the release of her second studio album, Perverts, the queer trans Florida native is taking a big swing in an effort to redefine her sound — even if it means losing fans along the way.

Today on Commotion, music critics Niko Stratis, Matthew Ismael Ruiz and Reanna Cruz join host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to discuss Cain's unique and uncompromising artistry.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, including the panel's discussion of Bad Bunny's new album and the new Netflix documentary on Swedish superstar DJ Avicii, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player.

Elamin: Niko, can you just give us a sense of who Ethel Cain is, what she's about and how a fringe underground artist ends up becoming your favourite artist's favourite artist? How does that happen?

Niko: If I had an actual answer to that, we'd all be better off…. Ethel Cain is a creation of a queer trans person from the south — a place that we often write off, first of all — who made this pop record that everybody really gravitated towards, kind of glossing over the fact that even though it's a pop record, it's a very dark record. It ends with cannibalism.

Elamin: It's so dark. It's one of the darkest albums of the decade for sure.

Niko: It is so funny to see that on Obama's playlist. Like, whatever intern writes this for you, do they listen to these songs at all? Do they read the lyrics? ... That album really goes places. So, it is this really interesting thing where, like so many of these other artists, you get this popularity that you probably don't expect. And it's really hard to rein that in when you're like, "Well, I'm trying to do something here. I'm trying to take pop music and … inject a sort of southern gothic darkness to it, because that is what feels real to me. This is the thing I'm speaking to. This is where I come from." So to pivot to where we are now with Perverts, the new record, it kind of makes more sense than anything where it's like, "Well, this is what I was always doing and you weren't hearing it, so now you will hear it first and foremost."

Elamin: What I've loved is all the reactions to this new record — like when Perverts drops and all the people think they're going to get more American Teenager, and it's just reactions and memes of people being shocked like, "I don't know how to even process this album."

Reanna, let's tell people what Ethel Cain has been saying about the level of fame and the level of personal involvement people have been demanding into her life.

Reanna: I have always really admired Ethel Cain's candor. I think she is very forthcoming, and she has a level of authenticity that I think is very hard to find in music in general, but specifically somebody that has had songs as big as hers. And with that, I think she's often said that people are misinterpreting her work, whether implicitly or explicitly. I think when you have a song like American Teenager that gets big on TikTok … and all of that, there is opportunity for your music to be misconstrued and misinterpreted. And somebody with her aesthetic sensibility, I think, would bristle at that naturally.

Her music has always been very gothic, very narrative-rich, and I think to have a piece of music taken from that context is not conducive to her artistry, right? So I think that she has always kind of stuck to her guns … and not really shied away from that authenticity that makes her, as an artist, special. That's why I think this album makes a lot of sense. It's like, "OK, I'm going to make a drone slowcore record that not everybody is going to connect with, and that's actually awesome." And I love that.

Elamin: Not only is it awesome, it's the point. Like, the point is not everybody's supposed to connect with this…. Matthew, what do you think Ethel is trying to say by putting out this record in this moment in her career, when she knows that everybody's watching. Everybody's like, "Let's get that new Ethel Cain out here." And then she's like, "Y'all don't hear me. You just want to dance."

Matthew: Well, first I want to say the record is gorgeous. It is weird, and it is drone, and it is all these other things that are not pop, but it's beautiful. I have always had a soft spot in my heart for artists that antagonize their fan base. It's so brave and it's so rare, especially in the stan era — the idea of, "You don't own me, even though I make this art and I give it out. You don't get to decide who I am," you know? There's something really special about that….

I had to grow out of that phase as a youth, this idea of being entitled to anything from the artist, and what they owed me because I bought a T-shirt or a record or concert ticket or whatever, you know? I think she's forcing her fan base to reflect on that … because these fan bases are often not that different than a cult, you know? And she seems to be rejecting that wholeheartedly, which is pretty rad. I'm sure her management hated it, but when you support an artist, you support an artist with the art that they make. And so props to them for that. I hope she's able to weather it and still have a career because this is someone who has something to say, wants to take control of it, is not going to allow the commercial nature of the music industry to dictate what she does, and we need more of that.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Stuart Berman.