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MUNA, 'What I Want'

"There's nothing wrong with what I want," MUNA's Katie Gavin sings on the second track of the band's confetti cannon of a self-titled album, a Moroder-worthy disco beat pulsing behind her. And what does she want? Too many shots. Really good drugs. An instant crush forming on the dance floor in the middle of a gay bar. To taste and touch life to its fullest, the world her playground.

They're frivolous pleasures, and so simple. Or at least they should be. There is a passionate defiance to "What I Want," the sound of a young, queer woman seizing and holding fast to her desires, no matter how trivial, in a world too quick to tell her such desires are "wrong." The song is a sort of foil to MUNA's softer, lighter hit "Silk Chiffon," the track that precedes "What I Want," where Gavin's yearning is easy and unencumbered, with no need to address those who might judge her. What more justification should she require, beyond the intensity of her wanting? "I'm gonna take it, I'm just gonna grab it," Gavin sings, gluttonous and unapologetic — just as she should be.

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Hazel Cills is an editor at NPR Music, where she edits breaking music news, reviews, essays and interviews. Before coming to NPR in 2021, Hazel was a culture reporter at Jezebel, where she wrote about music and popular culture. She was also a writer for MTV News and a founding staff writer for the teen publication Rookie magazine.