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With a visual aesthetic right out of a Barbie pitch deck, Scene Queen is a bundle of unexpected contradictions. Her music is at once in line with classic, turn-of-the-millennium bubblegum pop styles as well as the hyperpop and metalcore popularized by newer generations. And underneath the shades of pink are honest, raw lyrics about the challenges of being a modern woman, from sexuality to mental health. After amassing a large social media following, Scene Queen canonized her sound on the 2022 EPs Bimbocore and Bimbocore, Vol. 2, building upon it further with 2024’s Hot Singles in Your Area.

Scene Queen is the alter ego of Hannah Rose Collins, a New York-born musician steeped in early-2000s emo and its culture, growing up on acts like My Chemical Romance, Sleeping with Sirens, and Pierce the Veil. She harbored dreams of either working or perhaps even recording for alternative label Hopeless Records -- she applied to intern there three times -- but privately worried that the emo scene was too misogynistic to allow space for female performers.

After idly dabbling in more straightforward pop songwriting, Collins decided to marry the two styles, creating Scene Queen: a loud, hyper-feminine persona with a penchant for pink and a frankness about sexuality (which helped Collins get comfortable with her bisexual identity). After self-releasing the single “Are You Tired?” in 2020, she attracted none other than Hopeless Records, which signed her and released the Bimbocore and Bimbocore, Vol. 2 EPs, which included singles like “Pretty in Pink,” “Pink Bubblegum,” “Pink G-String,” and “Barbie & Ken,” a collaboration with Florida pop-punk act Set It Off.

The juxtaposition of her girly aesthetic and high-volume sonic attack turned scores of heads, who built up a rabid social media fan base. In 2023, she began releasing sexually charged singles like “18+,” “MILF,” and “Finger,” which would form the backbone of her first full-length album, 2024’s Hot Singles in Your Area. ~ Mike Duquette