Dear Victoria - Carter Ray (Pop) Equal parts endearing and dance-able, before even knowing the meaning behind Carter Ray’s Dear Victoria, you can tell it’s a deeply personal track, which the artist’s sweet, focused vocal conveys with a breezy easiness about it. From the distorted synth lead to the vocal effects of pen on paper, there’s a bittersweetness to this bop in line with, say, Janet’s “Together Again.” The overall feel of the track is a modern pop 2-step, though we also feel a touch of retro in some of the instrumentation—an occasional bass lead moment comes to mind—that could land this in the heyday of DJ Mustard. If you’re looking for a home for this track in your library, we suggest putting Dear Victoria on any Justin Bieber styled playlist.

Without diving deeper, you may think the song is about a lost loved one, and on that level completely works as a mainstream bop. However, the song becomes so much richer when you realize the artist is a trans man and that Victoria was their prior identity pre-transition (dead name). Being able to take a specific queer experience, fit it in a modern mainstream style without losing any of its meaning and YET being universal and easily accessible to the masses—-now that is masterful. Hats off to Carter.

Best Lyric: “They’ll say I did this to you, but you did this for me.”