“Be Nice Princess” by Julia Kate: A Shimmering Indie Pop Anthem of Self-Worth and Rebellion
3 min read
Now and then, a young artist seizes the beat of her generation – that narrow zone between maturity and maturing into oneself – and transforms it into something personal and at the same time communal. Julia Kate, a 20-year-old singer-songwriter from Sherman Oaks, California, does precisely that in her latest single, “Be Nice Princess.” Julia is a songwriter and music business student at Berklee College of Music who, every day, exists in a dreamy, hazed world of youth and clear-eyed self-awareness as an artist, stepping out into the world of her own music. Influenced by artists such as Taylor Swift, Lorde, and Phoebe Bridgers, she combines the unconstrained feeling of bedroom pop with the sophistication of an experienced narrator. With a previous single and two EPs already under her belt, fittingly entitled Just a Kid and Yearbook respectively, Julia seems more than ever confident in her identity with this new single; a humorous, emotional reclamation of self-identity, and a dazzling show of indie pop brilliance.
“Be Nice Princess” reads like a diary entry left open under a pink fluorescent light—seductive, witty, and silently rebellious. The song was created with long-time collaborator Nick Rosen and was a product of flash inspiration, where a meme that said Be Nice Princess appeared in her mind and developed into something considerably deeper. On a bed of shimmering guitars and clean percussion, Julia sings back and forth between a sweet and a steel, making what would otherwise be a simple break-up lament into a delicate contemplation of boundaries, expectation, and self-worth. Her music is as light and airy as pop, but her words are as sharp and straightforward as confessional verse: a juggling act between delicacy and power. Every group of choruses falls like a smile concealing a sigh, and in the last refrain, Julia recovers the words of the company, ‘Be Nice Princess,’ as both defense and assurance. It seems like she is singing to all the girls who were ever told to play small, and to all those women who are only learning that she did not have to.
The music video that comes with it is a whimsical, pastel-saturated reenactment of Alice in Wonderland, which keeps the metaphor going. Within this dream world, Julia, acting as Alice, learns that being nice without limits is yet another form of a cage. Filmed with her sister Ella and close friends, it is as full of the coziness of community as it is of the fun of self-discovery. Combined, the song and its visual narrative are the ideal meeting point between irony and sincerity, a song exalting the cacophony of the coming-of-age. Having experimented with the themes of loss and faith in her last single, Angel, and now returning to joy and voice with Be Nice Princess, Julia Kate demonstrates that she is an artist of both emotional scope and lyrical boldness. It is a silent revolution that she turns mundane emotions into eternal pop poems. Be Nice Princess is not just a song; it is an excellent reminder that kindness and power can coexist, and that one can be nice without being silent.
🎶 Official Music & Social Links – Julia Kate
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