KEXP Premiere: Prom Queen - End Of The World

Seattle’s Leeni Ramadan (aka the glitter-gloom pop singer, Prom Queen) has established herself as a singular-voiced, bouffant-boasting player in the Emerald City music scene. If the ultimate goal of any creative person is to establish an immediately recognizable style, Ramadan has done that already. With a pink guitar in hand, she stands front and center on stage proclaiming ideals of bubble gum love and staring-in-the-eye-of-the-demon prescience. And if you need an example of this, look no further than the first single off her upcoming LP. The song, “End Of The World,” is the first track off the soon-to-be released album, Doom-Wop, a foreboding record dressed up in varsity jackets and poodle skirts. KEXP presents the exclusive premiere below. “It’s the end,” the song begins, Ramadan’s flute-like voice floating high, “of the world.” The singer, as if sitting on a rooftop like a perched bird, is “all alone” as her surroundings seem to crumble everywhere else. Guitar strings are plucked and the bass booms beneath while cymbals crash. The song, Ramadan says, is about an apocalypse – specifically, the one we’re all dreading and yet considering a real possibility in today’s politically and socially turbulent times. “It’s an anthem expressing our need for comfort, community, and companionship,” Ramadan explains, “in times where we feel the smallest and the most helpless to the destruction surrounding us.” The track, written as a response to a Skeeter Davis song by the same name, is also something of a wake-up call to potential Prom Queen’s fans who might think to enter into her world would be all slow dances and sock hops. Nevertheless, despite all the doom, the work is absolutely lovely.

Prom Queen will celebrate the album release of Doom-Wop on Saturday, September 23rd at the Piranha Shop in Seattle.