Isabella Lovestory by Polina Boyko
“Gorgeous” WATCH: https://youtu.be/9N3Y2pEL49Y LISTEN: https://found.ee/gorgeous
Vanity PRE-SAVE: https://found.ee/lovestoryvanity
(May 22, 2025) - Honduran experimental popstar Isabella Lovestory announces her sophomore album Vanity, out June 27th. Vanity subverts any expectations of an overly polished sonic facelift that its title might suggest, instead reflecting the intoxicating nuances of beauty and its decay. Stripping away all pretenses, Isabella’s new album playfully experiments with different sounds and palettes, exemplifying her collage-like approach to music that ponders every turn of the radio dial from her childhood across Honduras, Virginia and Montreal. Isabella explains the album as follows: “Vanity has a metallic analog vibe: a robotic funeral. Ghost in the Shell mixed with a pop-y ultra-feminine sound. Shiny yet rusty, fancy yet trashy, like ancient encrusted diamonds. Thematically this album explores fragility, how easily a mirror shatters, but it also explores the indestructible and eternal essence of beauty. I don't mind when things break, I like to collect the pieces and create something new.”
That playful disdain for genre boundaries is front and center on new single “Gorgeous”, which also releases today. Produced by Chicken, Isabella opens the new track with an inescapable hook reminiscent of early 00’s R&B before violins signal a shift toward her immersive experiment of molding modern pop in her image. Paired with a minimalistic and sleek music video directed by Jim Alexander, purposely different from her usual maximal approach. “I wanted the video to feel timeless and elegant, not tied to any specific aesthetic. What does being gorgeous even mean? To me it might mean a dusty car garage, a stray cat, or hot pink acrylics. Tarkovsky vibes.”
Vanity turns its eye directly on navel gazing itself, playing on the horror innate in the idea of beauty and the fractured identities it entails. The announcement arrives fresh off of starring in her own campy body horror drama with “Telenovela”, directed by Charlotte Rutherford, which The FADER called “a pure assertion of dominance from a pop star at the top of her game. The album is a transgressive and addicting medley that embraces the darker side of her sound, aligning itself with Latin trap and goth electronica, while also developing all of the creative direction for the visual elements of her own gothic novela. Isabella began the year with the single “Putita Boutique” featuring Argentina’s TAICHU, pouring gasoline on the flame that she started with last summer’s standout singles “Botoxxx”, “VIP” and “Puchica”.
Announced earlier this month, Isabella will play LadyLand Festival in Brooklyn at Under The K Bridge, joining a lineup that features the likes of FKA Twigs, Cardi B, Pablo Vittar, Eartheater, and more. Fans can also catch her at Barcelona’s Primavera Sound and Paris’ We Love Green Festivals this June. Born in Honduras before moving to the US and then Canada at 17 years old, Lovestory has positioned herself as a trailblazing force paving her own way at the cross-section of pop and reggaeton, making her an icon in experimental music. In 2022, she made her mark with her debut Amor Hardcore, which Pitchfork characterized as “playful, maximalist, and flirtatious to the core.” With an experimental reggaeton sound equally influenced by Spanish trap and goth electronica, Isabella’s forthcoming body of work extends her maximalist sonic experiment even further outside the lines, drawing on her beloved Y2K pop influences, textured synth-wave, her K-pop peers, and the defiant unapologetic women she looks up to, such as Lady Gaga and Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon.
Check out “Gorgeous” above, see below for more details on Vanity, and stay tuned for more details on Isabella's next album coming very soon. |
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