Doja Cat Planet Her (Deluxe) 2LP

Rolling Stone The 50 Best Albums of 2021 - Rated 21/50!
Consequence of Sound Top 50 Albums Of 2021 - Rated 13/50!
NPR The 50 Best Albums Of 2021 - Rated 31/50!
NME The 50 Best Albums Of 2021 - Rated 50/50!

Titled after the fictional planet conceived by rapper/singer Doja Cat, Planet Her is an amalgamation of pop, hip hop and R&B styles. The artist's third studio album includes the singles "Kiss Me More" featuring SZA, "You Right" featuring The Weeknd, "Need to Know" and "Woman", and also features guest appearances by Young Thug, Ariana Grande, JID, Eve and Gunna.

The third album from the extremely chaotic pop star, battle rapper, and edgelord is a thrilling ride that puts her eclecticism on full display.

Doja Cat isn't weird just to get attention - she's weird because she's weird. And on Planet Her, she celebrates the hot-pink lipstick-burlesque mess of a universe where she lives, bleeding pop into trap into dancehall into science fiction. She brings out the freak in the Weeknd ('You Right'), Young Thug ('Payday'), and SZA, with the sparkly bubblegum tongue-kissing raptures of 'Kiss Me More.' As for her Ariana Grande duet, 'I Don't Do Drugs,' it proves these off-the-wall divas are truly two of a kind.

Her own concept, Doja Cat cooked up the idea of 'Planet Her' as a place where all people can live in harmony. She celebrates this throughout her body of work, and it's evident through all tracks, standard and deluxe, that 'Planet Her' is a place where all people should want to live. Because of this, Doja Cat reimagines what it means to be a crossover artist whose influences in rap, pop, R&B and more are extremely innovative and well executed. There are few artists who have the ability to craft an album so perfectly executed and so commercially successful, which add to the multitude of reasons why 'Planet Her (Deluxe)' should be the Album of the Year.

All of Doja Cat's various creative wanderings are held together seamlessly by incredibly clean and detail-rich production. Each of her unexpected left turns and potentially clashing marriages of styles are guided into easy landings with expertly placed rhythmic dropouts, ear-catching synth flourishes, and inventive instrumental moves that fill any space that could be awkward or uneven in less-skilled hands. Planet Her's dazzling construction is matched by Doja Cat's controlled performances and a personality that can deliver hypersexualized brags and expressions of tenderness and fragility with the same power. Some of the album's best moments hold space for both, like the lewd yet sweet drift of 'Love to Dream,' and the pitch-perfect summer anthem 'Kiss Me More,' which closes out its celebration of lust and the giddy excitement of brand-new love with a verse from SZA. Doja Cat tries something new with almost every orbit on Planet Her. When the production magic keeps up with her boundless spirit, the songs reach a unique hotspot of fun and infectiousness that makes all of Doja Cat's disparate impulses gel into an exhilarating whole.

A shapeshifter, she dons and sheds different skins, as a mumble rapper, afrobeat star, bubblegum-sweet crooner, pretentious beat poet and, most importantly, producer with an ear for hits. On Planet Her, Doja soars through the interstices of pop, R&B and hip-hop, a captain exploring the depth of genre, each track on the album a reflection of a different sound she's subverted and brought back down to share with Earth. Standout tracks 'Get Into It (Yuh)' - a direct tribute to Nicki Minaj - and the deluxe edition cut 'Tonight' (featuring '90s hip-hop mainstay Eve) highlight Doja's shameless admiration for the women who carved out space for her as a genre-fusing pop-rap-star with an impressive ability to innovate new sounds.