Beauty Queen’s “Goner” is a pop banger with left-field inclinations

The first taste of Beauty Queen’s upcoming Out of Touch EP, “Goner” sees Katie Iannitello start the new year -and her career- in style.

We’re starting out the new year with an exciting premiere by a debuting artist. “Goner” is the debut single by Oakland-based artist Beauty Queen, the brainchild of Katie Iannitello. An impressive pop banger with left-field inclinations, “Goner” relies on dream pop instrumentation, reverb and hazy guitars galore. However, the melody and the vocals are as straightforward as it gets, sitting comfortably in the centre of the mix instead of being buried under a plethora of instruments. “Goner” is hardly something that would fit in seamlessly in the charts today, but it wouldn’t have been entirely out of place thirty years ago. It’s a laid-back and bedroom-poppy take on 80s alternative pop, an hypothetical Kate Bush-fronts-Mr Twin Sister scenario that has been brought to reality.

Opening with an immediately memorable guitar riff, the whole thing is just hook after hook after hook, all encapsulated in a three-minute-and-a-half pill that begs to be taken again and again. On top of it all sits the song’s majestic chorus, which peaks in its very first line with Beauty Queen hitting that high note on “I guess I’m a goner”. Reinforced with her own backing vocals and smooth guitar licks, the entire chorus is the cherry on top of this impressive debut track, produced by no one else than Henry Nowhere of Day Wave. Tune in below.