Woman's Gotta Have It: Shybaby runs laps on gratifying "Movie Star"
Shybaby has a knack for deliciously unvarnished depictions of love at its most endearingly messy and relatably complex, written with the scrawling enthusiasm and earnest candor of a heart that has resiliently endured every word and scream. On her latest single, Shybaby takes a different approach that broadens her emotional palette and finds new strength in the chaos of modern romance.
“Movie Star” is quieter than most of Shybaby’s established catalog, forgoing abject chaos in favor of a more even temperament that speaks to new levels of artistic and personal development, even while occupying a similar zone of interest. Composed almost entirely of a mid-tempo instrumental loop that slowly builds with measured restraint, “Movie Star” casts suggestive glances with the easy confidence of a predator stalking her prey, locking eyes from across the room behind the early-morning bokeh of a boozy brunch that’s stretched into late afternoon.
Unfolding with tumbling inevitability, the stream-of-consciousness narrative draws empowerment from a casual rendezvous as Shybaby intertwines vividly lucid descriptions and esoteric namedrops as a means of connecting the dots between lustful pursuits and basic physical gratification. Shybaby is no stranger to tackling this sort of subject matter, but “Movie Star” represents a more mature approach to seeking satisfaction by being comfortable with removing emotion from the equation in certain situations. By playing the game, Shybaby is putting her own needs above those a presumptuous suitor, confident in the fact that she could comfortably run laps around their clumsy advances should she choose, but sometimes you just gotta let it happen.
Stream “Movie Star” on Spotify and follow Shybaby on Instagram.