Ru Girl music has become a genre unto itself. The clever phrase refers to the music spun off from RuPaul’s Drag Race. Even contestants who don’t win the competition use the exposure to embark on multi-media careers, which include music. Throughout the show’s 16 seasons, the running joke is that Ru Girl music is disposable and a cash grab. Whenever a Drag Race queen releases music, she faces scepticism. Some Ru Girls release mindless, tinny dance singles to capitalize on their fame. Then there’s Pandora Boxx, the season two alumna, who made her mark with her sharp comedic timing and genial personality.
On her season, she gained plaudits for her hilarious channeling of Broadway legend Carol Channing on Snatch Game and her sweet vulnerability, a welcome contrast to the flinty, hard-as-nails queens who competed against her. Like her fellow queens, Boxx released a series of singles, but her ambition was to record a full-length LP. “It’s been a lifelong dream,” Boxx shared on her Kickstarter page, “to create my own music”. She described the project as “fun dance music that makes you feel happy and silly”.
Pandora Boxx’s debut LP, BOXX, is a charming, ingratiating record that allows Boxx’s most appealing qualities to shine, drawing in her interests in comedy, politics, dancing, queerness, and Star Trek. It’s a quirky, funny, and moving album that adds to the growing discography of 21st-century queer pop. It’s a record that responds to the queer legacy of albums by Bronski Beat, Culture Club, and Cyndi Lauper, all of whom had a big influence on her. But because Pandora Boxx is a comedienne, the work on BOXX is often very funny, so we’re also hearing echoes of 1970s-era Bette Midler, filtered through a 2020s dance filter. Her wit leads to amusing moments like “Stars”, a loving tribute to Star Trek, in which Boxx embraces her inner Trekkie. As her sampled voice drones “Beam me up,” Boxx – her vocals coated in studio trickery – pays homage to Gene Roddenberry’s classic creation.
“Stars” is a fun song that celebrates affection for the show. Boxx even makes the cute pew pew pew sound of the phasers like kids playing Star Trek in their backyard. But there’s a sweet poignance, too. Star Trek is appealing to LGBTQ kids because it posits a space or environment that thrives because of its diversity. The 1960s show was hailed for its allegorical and explicit treatment of race and discrimination. Hence, to a queer kid growing up in the 1980s during the AIDS crisis and its homophobic backlash, Stark Trek represented an escape – not just from reality but from pain.
That’s what dance music does for gay kids. It offers an escape. The first track, “Dance”, is a delirious call to action for fellow misfits and outcasts to “dance like no one’s watching!” In the face of adversity, as Boxx points out, “Sometimes all you can do is dance, sometimes all you must do is dance.” When dancing, she feels “unquestionably free”. Boxx has said she’s a fan of Madonna – and the legend’s influence is evident on this record – and “Dance” has similar themes of using the dance floor as a form of release from stress and unhappiness. With “Dance”, Pandora Boxx joins icons like Sylvester, Donna Summer, Lady Gaga, and Madonna, who have all preached the liberating power of a great dance song. Boxx’s release coincides with the 45th anniversary of Disco Demolition Night, when spectators packed Chicago’s Comiskey Park and destroyed a bunch of disco records, playing up the homophobic hostility against dance music. The relevance of “Dance” is still around, given the cultural backlash to queerness we’re witnessing now.
Boxx addresses these concerns more directly with “Gay”, a bouncing romp of an anthem that encourages listeners to be themselves. “It’s okay to be gay,” Boxx sings, “it’s okay to be who you are,” and she seems to be trolling Governor Rick DeSantis and possibly the whole state of Florida with the chant in the song’s bridge that has Boxx sassily shouts, “I say gay / You say gay / We’re all gonna say gay / It’s our way to make our claim, let’s say gay!” It’s a deceptively silly way to get her point across about ridiculous anti-LGBTQ legislation, especially the laws that seek to silence or erase queerness from public spheres like schools. Though the song can sound like a one-in-a-million empowerment dance song (RuPaul has recorded a few in her career), it’s a cheeky way of sending up the trope of the dance anthem while simultaneously addressing the difficult times queer communities are experiencing at the moment. Yet, that message is wrapped in glossy candy coating, making it amusingly sweet.
Though BOXX is a dance record, its auteur is a comedienne, so there are many moments of levity. On Pandora Boxx’s appearance on the sixth season of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars, she premiered her single, “Ridiculous” – a hilarious dance tune about feeling corny, out of place, and ridiculous in social situations. Unfortunately, “Ridiculous” isn’t on the album, but “Raspberries” is a great comedy song that starts with her iconic Carol Channing impression before it becomes a cute tune about the daily foibles in life as one tries to get through the day, without letting things like tripping while walking or having birds shit on you get in your way. It’s a wonderfully humane and empathetic ditty about not letting life’s crap get in your way. It’s funny but also vulnerable and open, like Pandora Boxx herself, and one of the many reasons why she’s remained a fan favorite.
During her Drag Race season, Boxx didn’t make it to the end and win the crown to become America’s Next Drag Superstar. But she did win Miss Congeniality. Named (and parodied) after the beauty title, Miss Congeniality is awarded to the queen, who endeared herself to the viewers with kindness. Pandora Boxx has carried that image of kindness over to her work outside of Drag Race, and it’s a pervasive theme on BOXX. In many ways, the record is a celebration of all the LGBTQ kids who, like Pandora Boxx, turned to pop culture like Star Trek or Madonna when the outside world was too harsh. It’s especially moving that now, being a successful entertainer, she can do the same for future generations of youngsters with her music.