Paisley Fields - are u mad at me
Paisley Fields has sharpened his pen into a glistening warrior's spear to write one of the best albums this year, writes Bee Delores. (Editor's note: we agree.)
"Pronoun meltdown in the bathroom line / Which one do they use / Both are labeled with unicorn signs / Now, they're helpless and confused," Paisley Fields sings with a barbed tongue. "Pronoun Meltdown" emerges as an essential on their new record, are u mad at me. It's that brazen quirk and playfulness that's served as the backbone to their career. This is the same artist who gave us the wonderfully erotic "Ride Me Cowboy," so it's to be expected.
Fields has clearly sharpened his pen into a glistening warrior's spear. That's most evident with other standouts such as "You Should Tell Your Wife" and "Hands Off the Hat." With the former, she regales us with a salacious tale about a closeted married man who keeps finding his way to their bed. It happens sometimes. "There you go again, you and your double life," sings Field with a heavy, full-chested sigh. "You should tell your wife what you got into last night / You should tell your wife you held me like it was a crime."
Before the album really revs its engines, Fields hits the glitter stage with the hip-thrusting "Straight Panic Defense," a deceptively feel-good song that's actually about reactionary behavior when clombered with things like a guy wearing socks with sandals ("Don't he know this is a Christian town?") or getting resting straight face from some bozo while in line. That lyrical centripetal force (and quite frankly, rhinestone-rock musicality) catapults the singer-songwriter right into the stratosphere.
Naturally, Paisley Fields takes time for some heart-on-their-sleeve ruminations about life and relationships. "When did we stop being friends? / Wouldn't it be easier if you were dead?" Paisley asks in the devastatingly brutal closer, "Uncle Charlie's." He ties that tear-stained lyrical ribbon around their throat, praying for closure, as they continue, "Then, I wouldn't have to know you're out there using all those years against me."
The clothes-ripping "In the Shadows," seemingly a page from a melodramatic romance novel, gets the blood racing, whereas "1984" quakes with terrible queer loneliness and fear during an age when gayness was vilified by the media, and President Ronald Reagan stumbled over his feet to properly address the AIDS epidemic, leaving countless gay men dead in the streets. "Something's come undone / Take me back to the way it was before," Fields lets the tears fall.
Paisley Fields has somehow managed to reach a new creative apex in her career. are u mad at me is easily a contender for 2026's best album. Truth be told, it's hard to describe the 12 tracks. You just have to hear it to believe it.
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