Kim Petras Doesn’t Care If You Think She Looks Crazy

Ongoing pandemic aside, Kim Petras is having quite the year. The 29-year-old singer has had a devout following since her 2017 debut thanks to her high-energy bops but has remained sort of a hidden gem for in-the-know pop fans and the LGBTQ+ community. But now, after two much-discussed red-carpet appearances, at this year’s VMAs and Met gala, the rest of the world is finally starting to catch on.

Her outfits aren’t the only thing that have people talking, either—Petras’s newest single, the dancy “Future Starts Now” and its accompanying video, is already a fan favorite after dropping in early October. “‘Future Starts Now’ was kind of the first song that was like, ‘This is the album. This is the direction I want to go into sonically,’” Petras tells Glamour. “The Airbnb that we’d moved into had this old painting of the Eiffel Tower, and I was watching this anime called Japan Sinks, which is about the end of the world and how to adjust to it, and that’s what lockdown kind of felt like. It felt like adjusting to a new life and getting past the anxiety and fear and just, you know, rolling with it and making the best of it. So I kind of put those two together.”

“The entire album, I was seeing the Eiffel Tower sink and me climbing up it,” she continues. “That was the most epic image and what I wrote the entire album in my head with, so we did that for the video. I really fought to make that happen, in a good way. I feel really, really proud of it. I think it’s a big step up as a performer and working with the camera and doing dance and choreography, which I’ve always wanted to do. This is the first video where I feel like I’m on top of my game, you know? I had the vision and fought for it, so I feel like this is my proudest moment.”