Magdalene Is Pop Music’s Savior

Mary Magdalene had Jesus Christ. Magdalene has “DJesus,” the song she produced alongside Slushpuppy and Dylan Harrison as the first single from her upcoming album.

But she’s no newcomer to the scene.

Magdalene previously toured as part of indie-rock bands Current Joys and Surf Curse before starting a solo project, Your Angel.

“Your Angel was a concept, and I wanted to be a person like Magdalene,” she says.

Encouraged by Slushpuppy, Magdalene reconnected with her teenage self and her roots in rock music.

The result is “DJesus.”

“It all ended up being a commentary on America and celebrity and Christian nationalism and where our country is at right now,” Magdalene says.

After all, rock music has rarely been silent.

“The fact that people are treating our president as a second coming of Christ — and there are AI pictures of fucking Jesus with his hands on Trump's shoulders — truly, it is religious psychosis,” Magdalene says.

Religion for her isn’t just political, it’s personal.

Magdalene, who comes from a family of conservative Christians in Santa Fe, New Mexico, wants to use her art to push cultural conversations forward.

“I always say women are Jesus of the world,” Magdalene says. “Put them on this pedestal and worship them, and the second they fall from grace, crucify them.”

Society wants women to be sexy and entertaining, she says, but not too slutty — there has to be purity as well.

To Magdalene, that paradox defines womanhood.

“I think it's why religion has been used a lot by women in pop music as a metaphor, because that story very easily ties into the experience of a woman in America,” Magdalene says.

She points to artists like Lady Gaga and Madonna. In her 2016 Billboard Woman of the Year speech, Madonna put it this way: “You’re allowed to be pretty, and cute and sexy, but don’t act too smart. Don’t have an opinion; don’t have an opinion that is out of line with the status quo, at least.”

Social commentary may define Magdalene’s music, but it isn’t calculated. She writes to make sense of the world around her. Cultural conversations naturally follow.

“I’ve used music since I was a kid to process the world around me and how I view it,” she says.

There’s something else that sharpens Magdalene’s perspective: sobriety.

“Being sober is the most psychedelic experience on earth, especially if you are an addict,” Magdalene says. “I’m forced to be extraordinarily present in my life. There’s no escaping.”

Magdalene watches, waits and analyzes. She then creates music to act as a mirror to the world around her. The number of streams is secondary. Magdalene’s success is measured by conversations.

“I do gauge my success on the type of people that I'm reaching and the types of conversations that are being had around my music,” she says.

She also has no false hope that all of those conversations will be positive.

“I have no problem taking a lot of hate or being a very polarizing figure in the music industry if I'm starting important conversations,” Magdalene says. “That's what art is supposed to be doing, and I think that there's a lot of great pop music being made right now, but I don't think it's necessarily starting any conversations. And I think that we are in dire need of that.”

“I want to be polarizing, and I want people to either love me or hate me,” Magdalene says.

There’s one way to find out if you’re an apostle of Magdalene — stream “DJesus.”