Kai Bosch turns to pop banger playbook on EP ‘Popstar of Your Dreams.’
Kai Bosch is ready for pop stardom, and he wants it now. On Popstar of Your Dreams, the 23-year-old is an unapologetic tour de force and is THE moment.
For a songwriter who cut his teeth on introspective and often heartbroken alt-pop flicks, Popstar of Your Dreams is a dramatic reinvention. The motive behind the success? To be ‘the biggest gay pop star in the universe’.
There's no better place to start than the EP's title track. A flirtatious letter to Spotify HQ, that playful single is laced with the frustration of a new artist desperate for a breakthrough that makes it an original and irresistible number.
"Put me in your playlist, I wanna be a star, so, so salacious," he winks. In the second verse, Bosch proves he'll do it all, whether that's a new country sound or as a lip-sync assassin. Failing that? "What's it gonna take to get you naked, I'd rather be a sellout if my name's in your mouth," he taunts.
Whether the team at Spotify do indeed want a night between the sheets with Bosch, or are just fans of what could be his strongest release to date, those pleas have worked. 'Popstar of Your Dreams' found its way onto New Music Friday UK's with the rising star's face plastered all over the cover New Pop UK.
The joy in Bosch's EP comes in the songwriter unleashing himself. Speaking to BBC Music Introducing earlier this year, the star referred to this era as a ‘bubble of pop dance banger energy’ with the release penned last summer.
Those sessions have, in no small part, been helped by the artist falling head over heels in love. Lead single 'Everything Is Beautiful' is an ode to obsessing over a Hinge match and 'Rodeo Romeo' sees Bosch whip that new love into its next stages.
Those tracks feel very much brother and sister as the singer's relationship progresses from the pre first date butterflies to love at its most full throttle. Both boast boombox-worthy production with a phenomenal attention to detail - 'Rodeo Romeo' a missed gem for a U.K. Eurovision entry and a sleeper hit which proved too irresistible for BBC Radio 1 this year.
The fourth and final track on Popstar of Your Dreams comes in the disco-influenced 'Angel'. On the EP closer, Bosch nods to the heartbreak of his earlier projects.
A track that a DJ might spin for the last drunken dancer at a roller skate disco, 'Angel' sees the singer struggling to move on from an ex in a world before the dating success of 'Everything Is Beautiful'.