Getting ready for a night out is its own ritual and I take it seriously. Playlist locked in, drink already poured, eyeliner unhinged because tonight has a different energy. You know the nights where you walk in and already know how it ends? You’ve decided before you left the house you’ll be the offer on the table and whoever’s lucky enough to get your attention is going to be grateful about it. Full seduction mode and all confidence. I was mid-mascara when Zoe on Venus’s ‘Cherry’ came on and I had to put the wand down because this song lives in that headspace and never leaves. It’s a euphoric nu disco invitation and she’s everything on the menu.
The production is pure 80s Madonna-era disco and it sounds fucking expensive. The beat sits low and the synths swell in waves that land somewhere below your waist. There’s a Peter Gabriel atmospheric depth running underneath it all, that lush layered texture he did so well, and it gives the whole thing a weight that makes it feel like more than just a dance track. I played this four times before I wrote a single word about it. Zoe’s team built a track that understands foreplay is the whole point and the bass line delivers on that promise with every single measure.
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Zoe wastes zero time. She opens with “I’ll treat you right / Diamonds for dinner paired with everything you like / I know what works together / It’s you and I / The perfect balance of a flavor so divine / You have good taste how rare” and the terms are already set. She’s the chef and the menu. That “you have good taste how rare” line is doing something filthy because it’s technically a compliment to her but really she’s crowning herself. Good taste means she chose HER. She’s the rare thing. Damn, I love this.
Then she pulls the curtain back: “I know you want me, extra sweet / Your satisfaction guaranteed / So come indulge in me I’m everything you need / At anytime, the pleasure’s mine” Satisfaction guaranteed. She said that. Out loud. About herself. That last line is giving slutty vibes because “the pleasure’s mine” works as a polite hostess sign-off and a declaration that the pleasure is hers to take on her terms. She’s chasing her own satisfaction here and she knew how this was going to end before she wrote the first word.
The chorus is where it turns pornographic and I mean that as the highest compliment I know how to give. “Are you ready? / I’m serving up another round it’s on me / Why don’t I fix you up a night go crazy / I want to make you feel so hot get ready / Dine on my cherry” Holy shit. She put “dine on my cherry” in a chorus. Going down on her is the destination and the whole song has been the foreplay. That “are you ready?” is so good because she’s checking in the way someone checks in right before he grabs her hair and takes over. Rhetorical. She already knows she’s ready.
Second verse and she stays in her damn lane: “Let’s put aside your stress tonight / I’ll fill your appetite / I want to feel the pressure intensify / We’re made to measure yeah this recipe’s just right / Fix yourself a plate I’m so delectable” The “pressure intensify” line is the moment the food metaphor tips fully graphic. She wants to feel it build. She wants the physical weight of want pressing against her. And then she calls herself delectable like it’s a fact she’s bored of defending. I want that level of certainty about my own body, honestly.
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The bridge is an instruction manual and it’s the most suggestive four steps anyone has ever put in a pop song. “Step 1 focus on me / Building up the tension, the intention is key / Step 2 you know what I need / Bring it to the table and then give it to me / Step 3 repeat after me / Wanna top it off? / Then baby say ‘please’ / Step 4 / More / More / More” She’s running a whole class. Every step is about her pleasure and her pacing. She controls when it ends. Making someone say please before she gives them more is a power move and she knows it. The “more, more, more” is an orgasm written into a lyric sheet and she did not stutter.
Victoria Allen built Zoe on Venus out of a very specific dream: a world where pleasure and sensuality run everything. The New Jersey-based queer artist created this celestial disco-pop diva complete with signature pink hair and iridescent glitter as a full portal into somewhere else entirely. She draws from 80s disco and outer space as twin obsessions and ‘Cherry’ is where those two collide at full speed. Honestly, Cherry 2000 called and approves. When she says she imagines a world where embracing sensuality reigns supreme, she wrote the blueprint and she’s already living it.
I finished getting ready with this song running back three times. Walked out feeling like the most delectable thing in the room before I even arrived. Zoe hands you that. She sets the whole fucking table and waits for someone worth sitting down. The dinner is served. The pleasure is hers. After spending an evening with ‘Cherry,’ it felt like mine too.
