On the 4th of April, Baby Queen released her latest single ‘Ride or Die’. The song was written and teased a few years ago already and was moving in the direction of being included on her 2023 debut album Quarter Life Crisis. Realising the song did not fit into this body of work, Baby Queen now treats her listeners to this song as a standalone single after the album.
The song is co-produced by EASYFUN, who is mostly known for working with Charli XCX. This production is what makes this song stand out from her other work, including more electronic influences and beats. The production makes her vocals feel more washed out, missing a bit of Baby Queen’s usual characteristic raw voice. However, knowing that this song didn’t fit the debut album, according to the artist, it makes sense that this song takes a new direction and listeners can appreciate it as such.
Starting the song with “I play with you more like a piano, I put your heartbeat in allegro”, Baby Queen describes the scenes of a chaotic love that leaves and comes back, going between desperately chasing and pleadingly waiting. These quick changes in emotions are accompanied by a catchy drum beat and synths, intensifying in the choruses. This does an excellent job of taking the listeners along on this back-and-forth journey and making the song feel as such.
Together with the song, fans were also treated to a music video, showing slices of life recorded on a purposefully terrible quality video camera. This video approach places the song right in the middle of daily life and perfectly strengthens the fun, catchy sound.
Both the musical elements and the music video shape and emphasise the song’s context. A lot of lyrics repeat, and the music video moves quickly: it all adds to the feeling of going back and forth, the scenes of parties, chaos, and being young. It’s catchy, it keeps you hooked, and the lyrics put things right how they are, “You need somebody to save, I need somebody to chase.” With this song, Baby Queen shows us how multifaceted she is with her sound and keeps us on our toes about what’s next.
Written by: Marieke Weeda
Edited by: Ilse Muis
