Remi Wolf - I’m Allergic to Dogs! | Where the Music Meets

With all of the important, historic, and deadly serious (quite literally) events we are living through right now, there is — and must be — space for fun. Pure unencumbered zany laughing fun and, crucially, also the sort of fun that can coexist with rage, pain, hurt, tears, and worry. Fun that can contain multitudes.

And, I haven’t listened to much recently that is more that kind of fun than Remi Wolf‘s music.

I discovered Wolf for the first time last year after hearing — and then subsequently binging on — her song Doctor from her debut EP You’re a Dog!

Fast forward nearly a year later, and I’m similarly binging on her follow-up of sorts EP (and her proper debut for Island Records) I’m Allergic to Dogs!

Funky, playful, sneakily sexy, and criminally catchy, Wolf’s songs are super fresh pop that bounce and spark and groove hard. She pulls inspiration from everywhere: failed relationships, aspirational relationships, anxiety and mental illness, children’s movies, 90s dance hits. Like on my favorite track from the record, the head-nodding, absolute earworm early release single Woo!, which Wolf describes as “kinda an ADHD anthem. It’s about feeling good and bad all at once. Love and hate.”

Wolf’s entire vibe — everything, from her backstory as a Junior Olympic Ski Racer-turned American Idol contestant-turned musician; to her wild, phantasmagoric music videos; to her impish interviews and social media posts — is an amazing, absurd mess of free expression. Which offers you, the listener, the wonderful feeling of being similarly, blissfully unencumbered.

In less capable hands, such vibrancy could be too much or too silly or too all over the place. But, Wolf is more than capable — with a seemingly clear sense of herself (“I don’t make music seriously, just intensely” she has said), a decided sense of humor, some seriously soulful vocal chops, and a clear ear for hooky beats and melodies. As Pitchfork wrote about the record, “the deftness with which Wolf wields her voice, and guides what could be a too-chaotic sound into precise pop magic, is remarkable.”

This is an electric record and Wolf is an electric talent.