I once let a guy at a party explain my own joke back to me because he looked so fucking proud I wanted to see how long the performance would last. He had already decided what kind of girl I was from the outfit I was wearing and the way I smiled instead of correcting him. Cute enough to flirt with. Quiet enough to talk over. I smiled into my drink and let him keep going because watching a man mistake access for control is free entertainment. ANJA’s ‘PLAY PRETEND’ runs on that same dirty little thrill. She gives the boys the fantasy they think they want and lets them feel powerful for a minute. Then she turns the whole thing into mockery with a manicure sharp enough to leave marks.
The production on ANJA’s ‘PLAY PRETEND’ feels theatrical from the jump, like she’s building a character and then letting that character tear through the walls. It pulls from dark pop and metal crunch, with rap bite and glitchy electronics flashing through the edges without sanding down the ugly parts, which is the whole fucking point. The track keeps shifting shape – moving between bratty vocal attitude and sharpened guitar pressure before heavier drops make the whole thing feel unstable on purpose. Instead of playing straight metal ANJA turns the aggression into something more stylized and cinematic with screams and a breakdown that push the song into full menace by the end. It sounds glossy and dangerous in a way that fits her whole alt-pop-with-teeth lane. This is rage with eyeliner on, and the production knows better than to behave.
ANJA opens like somebody walked back into the room after hearing every whisper about her and decided to make those whispers useful. “ugh / I’m back again / I’m loaded up, come detonate / got a bad reputation on my back / that vendetta bitch, she gon activate like” gives the track its first charge of threat and amusement. She knows the room has already made her into a problem. Fine. Problems get attention and they look hotter when they stop explaining themselves. The first verse feels like a girl walking in already over the conversation, already amused by the damage she’s about to cause.
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Then she lets the game get theatrical. “ha, let’s play pretend / you’re the one in charge, you’re so dominant / I’ll strip my dolls dressed up in pretty bows / is that enough skin for you?” makes the doll reference do actual work. She is talking about femininity as a costume men love to consume. Pretty bows and display become part of the pose he thinks he owns. She leans into the image because the joke needs bait, and the bait looks cute enough to make him stupid. That line about skin cuts because it calls out the appetite behind the fantasy. He wants the pretty version, the one that keeps quiet and looks good under the lights. ANJA gives him the show and lets the humiliation simmer underneath it.
By the time she starts flexing independence, the track stops teasing and starts cutting. “top tier bitch, I’m independent / I make the dollar, I’m the one whose spending / and I need these boys to stop pretending / I’m attainable, shapable / don’t you think I’m capable enough / I’m having fun / you a kill kill kill joy, I seek rebellion” turns the power dynamic into a financial and sexual dismissal at the same time. She pays her own way and chooses the room. She gets bored when boys treat her like something they can mold. That “kill joy” jab feels especially good because there is always some man standing too close to a woman’s fun, trying to make himself the main event. Take a seat. The girls are busy.
The chorus is where the hook becomes a taunt. “come play pretend / (are you feeling better?) / come play pretend / (does it sting a bit less?) / come play pretend / (promise I ain’t telling) / come play pretend” sounds flirty on the surface, but underneath it she is petting his ego while laughing at the size of it. The parenthetical lines make the whole thing dirtier because she is treating his need for control like a fragile little hobby. I love when a woman can make a man feel handled without raising her voice. That is the kind of power that makes weak men start calling women “intimidating” because they need a prettier word for losing.
The second verse gets colder and funnier. “pretty little boy, that’s quite the ego / I’ll share a secret, it’s not that he knows / I’m playing into delusion / a revenge only girls can see the illusion, ha” frames him as the one being watched and indulged. She lets him live inside the fantasy because watching him believe it is part of the punishment. The revenge is private. Girls know that move. A man monologuing while a woman quietly writes the damn group chat report in her head is practically a public health crisis. He thinks he is performing power. She is taking notes with a knife behind her back.
Her patience snaps into something sharper when the song goes after male expertise. “I do not need your expertise / (bitch please) / mansplaining for dopamine, your weak / (bitch please) / earn your annum in a fucking week, so to speak / and a bitch better even in the sheets like woah” is ANJA dragging a familiar species into the light. The man who explains because silence would reveal he has nothing else. The one who mistakes volume for value and gets a little chemical reward from hearing himself sound important. That second dismissal lands because she sounds amused, and amusement is devastating when someone expected fear. The flex has money in it, and the bedroom line has heat. The whole verse tells him his weak-ass application has been denied.
Then ANJA opens the door to her own little regime. “welcome to my mockery / welcome to the show where the girls got priority / welcome to the club where the ladies got authority / I’m sorry, is that too big a delusion? (swear to fuck) / desperate for a revolution coz / I seek rebellion” is the thesis with a smirk. The song is not pleading for power. It is already inside the room, drink in hand, deciding who gets access. The club image works because it sounds exclusive and slightly cruel. Girls first. Men can wait outside and be pressed as hell about it. She knows the idea of women holding authority sounds outrageous to the kind of people who benefit from calling it fantasy. That is why the mockery tastes so good.
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The ending gets full-body rebellious without losing the theatrical thread. “thou he seeks, he’s craving rebellion / I seek, craving rebellion, I seek, craving rebellion” turns the final stretch into a chant and the heavier breakdown makes the earlier flirtation feel combustible. The screams matter because the song has spent the whole time dressing rage in gloss. Once the breakdown arrives, the pretty performance has done its job. The room is primed, and the mask can crack. The guitars start sounding less like decoration and more like a door being kicked open from the inside. That is where ANJA’s hard edge earns itself. She lets the track go feral because rebellion should make fucking noise.
ANJA comes into this with the kind of online foundation most new artists would kill for. The South London singer and guitarist built her name through metal guitar covers and short-form alt content, with a guitar-first identity that already had people watching before the original music fully stepped into the room. Her Instagram following, currently sitting around 94K, makes the story bigger than another emerging artist dropping a single. She’s an internet-native alt girl turning riffs into a full-blown persona, and ‘PLAY PRETEND’ shows her moving from guitar flexes into character work with real bite. Under the ANJA name, with the Anya Jasmine trail still visible across YouTube and contact details, she’s carving out a lane rooted in the LGBTQ+ community, aimed at the girls, the gays and the misunderstood, with a pissed-off feminine gloss all over it.
I keep thinking about that guy at the party because ‘PLAY PRETEND’ understands the pleasure of letting someone misread you. He thinks the smile means agreement, and the outfit becomes access in his head. Silence feels like his win. ANJA lets that kind of man enjoy the fantasy long enough to make the fall funny. By the end, she has taken the role he projected onto her and turned it into a glitter-stained humiliation ritual with a breakdown attached. The girl he thought was easy to read was running the scene. The boys got their pretend power. ANJA got the last fucking laugh.
