illuminati hotties’ New Single “ppl plzr” Is a Keeper, with Proceeds Supporting the Trevor Project

“Tenderpunks” illuminati hotties released their debut, Kiss Your Frenemies, last year and followed it up this spring with “I Wanna Keep Yr Dog,” a charming romance-gone-wrong anthem for anyone who’s ever preferred a partner’s pet to their owner. Today (Oct. 22), frontwoman Sarah Tudzin has dropped another standalone song, “ppl plzr.”

Like “I Wanna Keep Yr Dog,” Tudzin’s bubbly, bouncy “ppl plzr” takes up a failed relationship with a sense of humor and eye for detail, even as the rug is pulled out from under her. Tudzin recounts a flood of quotidian romantic moments shared with her partner, movie-montage style—”half-off at a tiki bar / mellow moonlight on the carpet”—in a chipper singsong that only emphasizes the cracks in the surface. As her partner tosses her over for someone new, she’s struck with self-deprecation: “Guess I am the lesser man / Guess I am the drugstore brand.” “How can I prove I’m a keeper?” she laments in the outro, sounding like the sad “womp womp” trombone out of an old-school cartoon. The delightful “ppl plzr” more than proves it.

In a statement, Tudzin explains that while a new album isn’t on the horizon, she felt compelled to share “ppl plzr” as soon as it was finished “in the hopes that you will be open to experiencing emotions with me in real time.” The track is available on Bandcamp on a name-your-price basis, with all proceeds going to the Trevor Project, a nonprofit that operates a 24-hour, confidential suicide hotline, the Trevor Lifeline, and provides suicide prevention services to LGBTQ youth. “Every person deserves the opportunity to be themselves—to BECOME themselves,” says Tudzin, “and that often takes the care and support of the people around them and of organizations like this very special one.”

Listen to “ppl plzr” below and purchase the track here to support the Trevor Project. Further down, watch illuminati hotties’ March 2019 Paste session.