Eli is more than just a pop star—she’s a theorist of fame and a fangirl with a God complex (and a Canva Pro subscription). Stage Girl is her own fictional, melodramatic American Idol knockoff that she simultaneously loves, hates, and feuds with on Instagram—it also happens to be the title of her debut album. 

“Girl of Your Dreams,” the album’s second single, plays like a euphoric blast of Y2K pop runoff—precision-tooled catharsis with a manicured wink. It’s Eli at her most cunning: reverse-engineering a chart hit with the precision of someone who’s studied both Max Martin and media theory. “I can’t wait to put my CD in your boombox,” she teased endlessly across her socials prior to its official release—an ironic throwback that channels the sticky-sweet, early-2010s pop nostalgia pushing through every lovingly dialed-in second of the track.

Whether she’s riffing on TLC-esque sinuous guitars (“Stars [Lullabye]”), draped in the glistening melancholy of an early-’00s breakup ballad (“Marianne”), or flirting with Yours Truly-Ariana wistful, doo-wop sweetness (“I Wish I Was A Girl”), Stage Girl is a glittering daydream where cult classics collide, riff, and dissolve—filtered through Eli’s sly, hyper-literate pop lens. It checks off every pop album cliché with delicious panache—bracketed song titles, smouldering monologues that go on just long enough to make you blush, and, naturally, at least one double entendre about… self love.

“I’m a fangirl, I bought a T-shirt / At the altar, in the back of the concert,” Eli croons on the twinkling “Falsetto”—a knowing self-portrait of an obsessive acolyte who’s levelled up from merch buyer to pop savant. That gleeful blend of earnest fandom and sharp-eyed critique fuels Stage Girl’s dizzying hooks and intricate production, delivering a front-to-back experience packed with just enough “Wait—did she just say that?” lyricism to demand—and own—your full attention. It’s a debut as loud as a J-14 cover and as sparkling as your weird high school crush’s Myspace, a bright promise that the pop crown might just be a fedora.