Pop music is not short on self-proclaimed main characters, but Stan Pratt is flipping that script with a little more science and a deep love for the drama. Blending glitter, irony and a degree in neuroscience, his debut EP ‘INTROSPECTATOR’ is a technicolour dive into alt-pop that’s as emotionally intelligent as it is gloriously OTT.
“I’m now at a point in my life where I feel fully confident in my artistry and sound,” he says. “I’d held off releasing music for a very long time because I needed to be secure in how I wanted to present myself and what I wanted my music to say.”
The EP is only just arriving, but Pratt’s been building this world for years. Growing up in Brighton, he found an early creative outlet in making GarageBand tracks at the age of nine and pretending they were live shows. “When I was about 13, I got really obsessed with the idea of performing my songs live, so I’d make versions of them with audience noise built into the track.”
Soon after came Outline, the duo he formed with his best friend, Mason. “We’d both been writing songs, albeit not to the highest standard, from an early age,” he laughs. “We helped each other so much in growing our confidence with writing and performance, and I know I wouldn’t be where I am now if it weren’t for that duo.”
After going solo, he dabbled with direction. “I think my writing style was still the same, but I’d have some heavy, dark electronic tracks contrasted with some rhythmic, guitar-oriented songs. I had this fear in my head that if I go too deep into more digital sounding music, it would be less accessible. I learned to let that go.” These days, he’s fully embracing his love for modern synthwave and the maximalist edges of 80s pop.
“I really started getting into music when I was growing up in the late 2000s and early 2010s,” he says. “I used to just always love stuff I could dance or scream the lyrics to.” With the rise of artists like Chappell Roan and Charli xcx, he feels pop is finally catching up again. “Pop music is starting to hit that sweet spot. Large-scale anthems but with this fantastic creative input that was harder to come by in the early 2010s.”
He calls himself a “Pop Girlie Boy” with pride. “I don’t think any male artists right now are doing anything quite as fun and campy,” he says. “So it feels fitting to call myself a ‘male pop girlie’.”
Stan’s new EP is five tracks of fictional storytelling through a deeply personal lens. “Each song is a completely fictitious or impersonal narrative, but I’ve used my own experiences and feelings to understand those different perspectives.” One of the standouts, ‘Erotomania’, is about a deluded fan who becomes obsessed with a celebrity. “While this is not a situation I’ve ever found myself in, I can draw upon parasocial relationships I may have had when I was younger to really understand this fan’s more extreme perspective.”
That way of writing, he says, is “a really fun and eye-opening way of writing.” He also finds his neuroscience background has helped him unlock some of those emotional layers. “Music is a media source like no other in how it evokes such a variety of emotional responses in us,” he says. “But when it comes to writing pop songs, I can’t say there’s a scientific equation I use. There definitely is a psychology to creating catchy hooks or earworms, but I sometimes worry the songs would lose their magic if I focused too much on specific patterns.”
That balance of emotional weight and pop precision runs throughout the EP. First single ‘Je Ne Sais Quoi’ is a tongue-in-cheek takedown of a narcissist, layered over a summer-ready beat. ‘Dopamine Beast’ tackles addictive personalities with a sharp lyrical edge. The newest release, ‘Cry Me Rivers’, is a slow-burning anti-romantic ballad that hides its cruelty in sentiment. “It feels romantic and sweet. However, the lyrics are actually from the perspective of someone who’s completely detached, even a little psychopathic.”
There were challenges along the way. “It’s five songs that I’ve accumulated over the past two years, and it’s definitely been quite the rollercoaster,” he says. “I originally had no idea what I wanted as my fourth track. That was a really difficult decision.” In the end, he chose ‘Mercenary’, a track he first uploaded to SoundCloud without the intention of ever officially releasing it. “That was the first song I made that I really felt saw my artistry start to form direction.”
He’s an admitted perfectionist. “Every time I’m about to release a song, I think it sounds god awful. It’s only when I perform them live again that I’m like, ‘You know what, actually? This is kind of a bop’.”
Live is where the Pop Girlie Boy world truly opens up. With a band behind him, the shows have taken on new life. “When I think about performing my songs live, it gives me the biggest goosebumps,” he says. “I also love the idea of my songs sounding different because I have my band playing with me.”
He’s got a headline show at The Troubadour in London coming up, and a new music video on the way. “I got to work with the incredible Ciaran O’Brien and Tim Bunn, who truly made it into such a masterpiece,” he says. “It’s something I’ve wanted for a long, long time.”
Even as the EP looms, his head’s already in the future. “I already have a plan for what I want to put out next. I can’t help but always get excited about the next project before the first has even come out.”
So what does success look like to Stan Pratt? It’s not charts, or awards, or even virality. “Success to me is about freedom,” he says. “I just want to reach a point where music is the thing that sustains me, and I have the space to experiment and grow without pressure.”
For now, though, it’s the era of glitter, big hooks and weird little character studies. Welcome to the world of Stan Pratt. There’s nothing else quite like it.
Stan Pratt’s debut EP ‘INTROSPECTATOR’ is out now.
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