MUNA Capture the Loneliness of Tinder in New Single “Number One Fan”

“So I heard the bad news / Nobody likes me and I’m gonna die alone,” sings MUNA frontwoman Katie Gavin in a chilly deadpan that sounds like the Deal sisters covering Imogen Heap. It’s an accurate record of the feeling of checking Tinder at 3:23 a.m., only to be greeted by your empty inbox—same as the last seven times you checked.

L.A.’s fiercely queer synth-pop trio MUNA have always believed that pop can be political praxis. Their debut 2017 album About U dealt with urgent themes like LGBTQ+ pride, sexual assault and abusive relationships. But “Number One Fan,” the first single off their forthcoming full-length Saves The World, shifts their focus into something off the headlines: the loneliness and insecurity of being single, queer and young.

So what’s the panacea for the loneliness of forever “looking at strangers on my telephone”? When we get to the bouncy chorus, Gavin imitates a rabid fan as she looks at herself in a mirror: “Oh my God like, I’m your number one fan / So iconic, like big, like stan,” she sings flatly. She answers the question uniquely: Let’s use stan culture as a kind of positive self-talk. It’s a campy, ridiculous and queer answer that we should expect from some of the oddest indie-pop artists this side of Passion Pit.

Listen to “Number One Fan” below.