Album Review: Isabella Lovestory - Vanity

‘Vanity’ is a trashy, but unbelievably delightful display of Isabella Lovestory’s hyper-feminine confidence and agency, aware of vanity's glorious highs and perilous lows. All paired with eclectic textures that expand upon her sonic foundations with terrific results.

Since the release of her debut album, Isabella Lovestory has only gotten more confident and aware of the understanding of vanity and all of its titillating highs and intoxicating lows. The kind of revelry surrounding sex, fashion, and feminine beauty that reaps its own personal rewards, but acknowledges how it can be overwhelming and lonely, especially when men tend to treat feminine confidence and hypersensuality with fleeting disposability, for the most part. In ‘Vanity’, Isabella Lovestory plays into that trashy sense of chique extraordinarily well, allowing so much devilish allure and genuine ache to permeate while keeping her overall agency intact. More cracks in the artifice would’ve amplified the themes that Isabella tries to explore, but playing headfirst into such chaotic fantasies and having fun in all of it is a boon in the album’s favor.

What also makes the album so inviting is the expansion of sound that still keeps a lot of Isabella Lovestory’s melodic chops consistently strong. The well-produced neoperreo tunes (‘Fresa Metal’ and ‘Puchica’ are highlights for this) are still her core sonic foundation, yet there are enough electric additions of textures and tones that only add to the album’s sense of glee and wonder. ‘Vanity’ brings along some 80s synthpop texture that enhances its stable groove; ‘Pill’ is a gentle swish of cooing vocals and glistening atmosphere; ‘Tu Te Vas’ is a refreshing introspection from that sexual fantasy paired with lumbering bass notes and dreamy synths; and ‘Gorgeous’ as well as ‘VIP’ goes so far as carrying some 2000s pop influences to its sleeves, especially with the shuffling pop rollick amidst buzzy synths of the former and the crunk rap swagger and orchestral hits of the latter.

What ‘Vanity’ showcases is an embodiment of Isabella Lovestory embracing all the trashy mess on display, yet still has a lot of fun and charm that never dilutes her own agency and her confidence within her hyper-femininity. Allowing the tunes to end up becoming delightful, as well as opening more waves for alternative, queer, and feminine spaces to shift things up when it comes to reggaeton as a whole. The embrace of one’s vanity is a rollercoaster in of itself: terrifying lows, but arousing highs.

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Favorite Tracks: ‘Fresa Metal’, ‘Puchica’, ‘Vanity’, ‘Gorgeous’, ‘Pill’, ‘VIP’, ‘Tu Te Vas’

Least Favorite Track: ‘Perfecta’