Mannequin Pussy – Perfect

There are few things more viscerally satisfying than a 90-second punk rager, and on Perfect, Mannequin Pussy aims for the guts with both fists.

Perfect comes out swinging with a moan of guitar feedback and thunderous drums. Lead singer Missy Dabice yelps the lyrics into a broken microphone, her voice cracking into a single righteous syllable at the end of the second chorus. Not a ‘whoa!’ exactly, nor – god forbid – a ‘yeah!’, but more of a stabbed-in-the-stomach ‘Uaagh!’ As the song lurches into a brief breakdown, Dabice’s high-pitched giggle becomes first a sob, then a howl, then a scream. It’s a remarkable moment of vulnerability – the eye of a raucous musical storm.

And what of that vulnerability? ‘Tell me I’m perfect, tell me I’m it,’ Dabice yells, a mantra that repeats itself throughout the song’s slight runtime. In an elegant narrative flourish, the song never reveals exactly what the ‘it’ for which Dabice yearns actually is. The titular perfection remains tantalisingly out of focus – defined only in negatives and in reflections. The imploring tone with which Dabice delivers the hook is startling – ‘don’t you think I’m perfect // the way I dance for you?’ she half-screams, drawing a ragged breath between the lines. The question goes unanswered and is thrown into stark relief by guitars that suddenly turn sour and guttural.

In a 2020 interview with Detroit Metro, Dabice characterised Mannequin Pussy’s writing process as one which begins with questions. ‘How do we make a song that feels like pure energy?’ she asks, ‘Or a song that instrumentally feels like sadness?’ In just under a minute and a half, Perfect knocks out a loud and definitive answer.

Christopher R. Moore