“I like it when you’re nice to me,” Stella Lefty sings in the hook of her breakthrough single, “Boston.” To which we can only reply right now: Hope you’re not reading the comments.
Try to recall the last time there was as much mass derision directed at one song as there is currently aimed at “Boston.” Would it have been back during quarantine, when Gal Gadot made everyone queasy with a highly mockable all-star cover of “Imagine”? Was it when Oliver Anthony became a quick cultural blip for his ingenious idea to fat-shame welfare recipients? Or would it have been when Jason Aldean was looking to make lynching cool again with “Try This in a Small Town”? But no, not even these examples approach the level of sheer enmity being laid upon what, on the surface, feels like as light-hearted and innocuous a single as anything any pop or country artist ever put down.
Lefty is as close as we get to a true overnight sensation… and also a near-overnight scapegoat. She is going to be punished for all of America’s sins, and also get a bunch of platinum certifications and possibly a couple of Grammy nominations, before this ride is all over. If she still has her head on her shoulders at the end of it all, then it might mark one of the most striking psychological survival stories since Monica Lewinsky came out OK after all. Because the feeding frenzy is staggering.
