Doja Cat’s “Vie”; 80s Galore with more than a few missteps
Doja Cat has always thrived on unpredictability, and with her fifth studio album Vie she tries to prove that she can still outfox expectations. After the full-rap pivot of 2023’s much-maligned Scarlet, which felt like a deliberate rejection of her pop-star status, Vie feels like an embrace (or at least a playful truce) with her pop instincts. Jack Antonoff’s fingerprints are all over the record, coating Doja’s genre-hopping impulses in lush ’80s synths, elastic basslines, and the occasional shimmering falsetto. The result is an album about love and relationships that is often clever and catchy, but also overlong and, at times, too lightweight to fully land.
Doja comes out swinging on “Cards,” a braggadocious opener built on an MC Hammer-inspired beat. Her slick flow glides between rap and melody as she teases, “Maybe I’ll fall in love baby / Maybe we’ll win some hearts / Gotta just play your cards.” It’s a confident reminder of the duality that makes her one of the most compelling pop-rap artists of her generation. “Jealous Type”, the album’s lead single, leans deeper into the neon-soaked era Antonoff clearly adores, punchy snares and vintage synths wrapping around Doja’s winking lyrics.
Elsewhere, she gets experimental with both structure and delivery. “AAAHH MEN!” interpolates RuPaul’s iconic laugh and uses group harmonies, giggles, whispers, and shouts to embody the chaos of falling in love. It’s theatrical, funny, and one of the most memorable tracks on the album. “Couples Therapy” tones things down with a snappy beat and Doja stretching her upper register, while “Gorgeous” is a standout moment: a sleek, R&B-heavy track that blends Drake-like flows with silky falsetto.
Doja keeps the genre palette wide. “Stranger” throws in a brassy sax line and aggressive, Eminem-style rapping. “All Mine” turns down the lights with Prince-like falsettos and even quotes Grace Jones from A View to Kill, a tongue-in-cheek nod to the album’s retro core. Meanwhile, “Take Me Dancing” (feat. SZA) should have been a knockout; two boundary-pushing artists on one track, but its Janet Jackson-style groove feels lighter than it should, playful but underwhelming.
She regains momentum with “Silly! Fun!”, a rollercoaster of a track built on a Beach Boy’s Wouldn’t It Be Nice reference. It’s classic Doja: intentionally scattered, chaotic, and brilliant. “Acts of Service,” however, fails to lift off despite its hard-hitting beat, sounding like a B-side compared to stronger tracks. “One More Time” lands better, with heavy electric guitar and an alt-pop chorus that explodes into one of the album’s biggest moments.
By the time the back stretch hits, the French-tinted R&B of “Happy” (“mon cœur” whispered like a charm), the Antonoff-soaked sparkle of “Come Back”, it’s clear Vie suffers from a lack of editing. Fifteen songs is simply too much, and the repetitiveness of its ’80s palette starts to blur the highlights with the filler.
Still, when Vie hits, it proves Doja Cat hasn’t lost her ability to make daring pop-rap hybrids sound fresh. Its best songs are infectious, witty, and slyly experimental. Its weakest moments are repetitive and too lightweight to make an impact. But as an artistic course-correct, Vie fails more than it succeeds, suggesting Doja is still attempting to find balance between her rapper bravado and pop-star charisma, even if she sometimes winks too hard in the mirror.
