Though it’s far from the most exciting piece of music, Ariana Grande‘s “God Is a Woman” is at least pop’s best bait-and-switch of the year: a song that advertises itself as a feminist anthem, which it is, but not in the way it wants you to think. “When all is said and done,” Grande sings in her breathiest voice, “you’ll believe God is a woman.” No such games are played, though, on “Pussy Is God,” the new single from nascent pop star King Princess, which opens thusly: “Your pussy is God and I love it / Gonna kiss me real hard, make me want it.”
So, yeah. “Pussy Is God” is a song about sex so intoxicating that it turns you into a zealot for sinning. It’s brash and funny—there won’t be a single better song title this year—delivered with a confidence and swagger that implies that King Princess answers to nobody and nothing except, well… you know. The context of Grande’s career required her to deliver her pussy-too-bomb anthem with a wink and a smile, and she found a nice bit of subversion within that. But King Princess is at a stage in her career where this sort of provocation is exactly the thing that makes one stand out.
Of course, it could have just been a provocation. Instead, “Pussy Is God,” which King Princess wrote with (her girlfriend?) Amandla Stenberg, is a fully-formed pop song, taking the ropey, finger-plucked guitar and bass of breakout singles “1950” and “Talia” and nudging them towards the misty, danceable, soft-hued prom anthems of Carly Rae Jepsen or recent vintage Aly & AJ. Still, it drips with individuality. Its chorus comes only after the song shatters itself and then reforms in a split second, like a video of a broken vase being played and then rewound. Suddenly, “Pussy Is God” has the thump-and-swirl of something like MGMT or Passion Pit, from which King Princess emerges singing, “You know that it’s God, baby, when you’re around her / I’ve been praying for hours,” her voice melting into the song’s new textures.
In any event, you will feel like an ass as you walk around muttering “Your pussy is God and I love it” this weekend. But you will feel like a liberated ass, which is basically all we can ask for from pop music.
