Perverts
Perverts Album ∙ Alternative ∙ 2025 Ethel Cain Around the time of her big break with 2022’s Preacher’s Daughter , Ethel Cain was dubbed a pop star, though it was often hard to tell from her songs. Aside from “American Teenager,” a Springsteen-esque anthem that laundered sneakily unpatriotic sentiments through arena-ready melodies, that album’s songs were largely dirges (gorgeous ones, at that) preoccupied by ideas of doomed love, faith, and fate. Written and produced almost entirely by Cain (the stage name and alter ego of Hayden Anhedönia), the project’s lore was nearly as compelling as the music itself, launching Anhedönia into something like stardom. Since then, Anhedönia’s spoken freely about the pitfalls of popularity; she penned a Tumblr post last year identifying an irony epidemic within online fan culture: an aversion to approaching art with sincerity rather than memes. You could be tempted to view Perverts , Cain’s first release since Preacher’s Daughter , as ...