Doja Cat has always been hard to pin down. Her rise was shaped by meme virality, sharp-tongued rap flexes, and glossy pop hits, but she has never stayed in one lane long enough to be boxed in. With Vie, her fifth studio album, she turns sharply toward melody and reflection, softening the confrontational stance of Scarlet and leaning into retro-futurist pop textures. The title, French for “life”, frames the project as something bigger than just another stylistic pivot: a record about love, renewal, and how to begin again after surviving the glare of public scrutiny.
This is Doja at her most deliberate. Where Scarlet cut with fury and spite, Vie looks to reclaim pop on her own terms. The sound palette is drenched in synths, neon-lit drum machines, occasional horns and saxophones, a palette that nods toward 80s gloss without drowning in pastiche. That nostalgic framing works because it’s not just an aesthetic, it links directly to the themes of memory, longing, and possibility that run through the record.
The opening salvo, “Cards”, lays out the album’s hand: smooth jazz flourishes, slinky 80s grooves, and Doja’s wordplay. A smoky saxophone melts into the beat before she slips in with a falsetto hook about messy love and blurred lines, “The more we can clear this smoke / A little further I’ll go.” By the chorus, she’s both player and dealer, daring her partner to “play your cards right.” The second track, “Jealous Type”, sets the tone further: tender synth chords, tight percussion, and a vulnerability that feels closer to Hot Pink’s melodic ease than to the raw edges of Scarlet. It’s a song that admits doubt but dresses it in shimmer. Elsewhere, “Gorgeous” and “All Mine” stretch that retro sheen into lush widescreen pop, all glowing textures and horn-flecked soul. By contrast, “AAAHH MEN!” pushes the opposite way: tense, volatile, moving between whispered intensity and explosive bursts, a reminder that Doja still thrives on friction as much as gloss.
The only feature on Vie comes from SZA, and it lands on “Take Me Dancing”. It’s not built like a blockbuster duet, but more like a late-night exchange between two people who understand each other. SZA’s verse leans soft and hushed, sliding into the beat where Doja is more jagged and insistent. The track has that slow, swaying pulse that feels half-romance, half-confession, and it stands out because both women sound comfortable letting the other take space. It’s less about star power and more about chemistry, the kind that lingers after the song fades.
The record’s closing run is where its emotional weight lands hardest. “Come Back” drifts between heartbreak and catharsis, its cinematic melancholy grounding the album in something far more human than pure pop theatre. “Acts of Service” and “Couples Therapy” pull back into minimalism, perhaps too much, at times, but their sparseness gives the album a chance to breathe, to linger on the ache behind the surface shine.
Part of the intrigue here is the push-and-pull between persona and person. For years, Doja has been cast as a provocateur, quick to troll, quicker still to undercut her own audience. On Vie, she risks something different: a kind of emotional exposure that runs alongside, not against, her pop instincts. It’s telling that she brought in Jack Antonoff, whose hand can be felt in the luminous synth layering and swooning vocal arrangements. This is not coincidence; it’s Doja signalling a desire to be heard within the lineage of the great modern pop auteurs, not just as a shapeshifting rap-pop chameleon.
That ambition does open her to critique. At 15 tracks, Vie can feel uneven, its formula (pop chorus + rap coda) occasionally too easy. And the retro gestures sometimes lean heavily into homage rather than invention. Yet what saves it is Doja’s presence: the way she flips from playful to wounded, cocky to sincere, often in the space of a single track.
In 2025, she’s an artist who’s weathered peaks and firestorms alike. The seven years since Invasion of Privacy’s Grammy triumph (and the storms of Scarlet) have seen her public image pulled in every possible direction. But Vie isn’t about smoothing those edges; it’s about reclaiming the right to vulnerability within pop spectacle. Doja makes space for heartbreak, longing, and softness, even while keeping one hand firmly on the club-ready pulse that made her name.
Vie is a return to pop and a negotiation with history, her own, and the lineage of the sounds she draws on. At its best, it finds her not imitating the past but using it as a mirror, searching for herself in its shine. If Scarlet was the firestorm, Vie is the afterglow: still flickering, still restless, but finally willing to show the cracks that make the light come through.
