"Prom Queen" is a song recorded by American rock band
Beach Bunny. The song was released on August 10, 2018.
Background
Trifilio wrote the track for a friend that was struggling with body issues.
The song has been called "a protest of Euro-centric beauty standards."
Trifilio was nervous to release the song, with it lacking a romantic theme that was commonplace for many of her songs:
"I was scared it would be listened to in the wrong way, like I was encouraging eating disorders. In general, I think there’s a void (in pop music) in discussing social issues, and I hope to write more songs like that."
The song is the namesake of the band's fourth extended play, first issued in August 2018.
"Prom Queen" is one of many songs that went viral on the Chinese
video-sharing
An online video platform (OVP), provided by a video hosting service, enables users to upload, convert, store and play back video content on the Internet, often via a structured, large-scale system that may generate revenue. Users will generally u ...
service
TikTok
TikTok, known in China as Douyin (), is a short-form video hosting service owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from 15 seconds to 10 minutes.
TikTok is an international version ...
, with hundreds of thousands of user-generated videos featuring the song as its soundtrack. Abby Jones at
Pitchfork described many of these clips as featuring "a girl posing in front of a phone camera to illustrate Trifilio's opening lines: 'Shut up, count your calories/I never looked good in mom jeans.'"
The song first went viral in April 2019, months after its release.
Reception
Greg Kot
Greg Kot (born March 3, 1957) is an American music journalist and author. From 1990 until 2020, Kot was the rock music critic at the ''Chicago Tribune'', where he covered popular music and reported on music-related social, political and busines ...
from the ''
Chicago Tribune
The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...
'' said the track "distills tween anxiety and self-doubt with a rare directness. It’s a survivor’s manual dressed up in dark wit and a sharp, guitar-driven melody."
Jones from Pitchfork called it indicative of the band's formula: "sentimental and wistful, with a plainspokenness that prompts immediate sympathy."
''
Paper
Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distributed ...
'' Eli Enis said the song "radiates a sense of emotional victory, as if Trifilio has expelled the unpleasant subject matter and is now singing from a place of resilience."
Personnel
Credits adapted from the group's
Bandcamp
Bandcamp is an American online audio distribution platform founded in 2007 by Oddpost co-founder Ethan Diamond and programmers Shawn Grunberger, Joe Holt and Neal Tucker, with headquarters in Oakland, California, US. On March 2, 2022, Bandcamp ...
.
;Beach Bunny
* Lili Trifilio - vocals, guitar, songwriting
* Jonathan Alvarado - drums
* Matt Henkels - lead guitar
* Aidan Cada – bass guitar
;Production
* Ray Riot – recording engineer
* Nick Reuille – assistant recording engineer
* Aaron Cada – mixing, mastering
Charts
Certifications
References
{{Beach Bunny
2018 singles
2018 songs
Beach Bunny (band) songs