The Shygirl drought has been going strong in 2026—until now. With the release of a new single called “Alyse,” the shy girl known in real life as Blane Muise is back with a sound very much intended to usher in a new era. And that sound is decidedly reminiscent of The Prodigy—think: “Firestarter” meets “Smack My Bitch Up.” And to help her cultivate that sound are her co-producers, Karma Kid and JD Reid (Shygirl has collaborated far more times with the former, but it’s apparent that Reid brings out plenty when it comes to “her sound”). Starting with the ethereal opening notes that might initially lead one to believe Shy has switched genres entirely.
But no, after delivering the first verse (said in an intonation very similar to how Marina and the Diamonds [a.k.a. MARINA] sings the opening verse to “Homewrecker”), “If you’re not there/If you don’t know/Where do I go?/Who would I tell?/How would you know?/The same sky we see/The same air we breathe/You could never be too far from me/I’d like to think you’d feel me still/You’d know somewhere/I need you here/You’d reach me still/However far I am,” the beat drops with a thumping, propulsive vengeance. Like The Prodigy’s music has been bottled for Shygirl’s own unique purposes and is now being shot out of a cannon. And it’s this sonic landscape that so clearly influences the narrative of the video, co-directed by Shygirl, Francesco Loy Bell and Oliver Bell. A narrative that very much embodies the style of a late 90s British gangster movie (think: Guy Ritchie’s Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels).
As Shygirl herself remarked of the single when speaking to Nick Grimshaw on BBC Radio, “It kind of has that action movie propulsion going on” (as does The Prodigy’s music, hence “Smack My Bitch Up” being famously featured during an action sequence from Charlie’s Angels). Accordingly, the opening scene homes in on two gangster/goon types leaning against the wall of a house smoking, and then sort of discreetly skulking away when a car’s headlights shine on them. The directors then cut to a pair of high heels walking along the pavement, panning up to reveal the exposed flesh of a woman—the “sugarbaby”—in an evening dress as she passionately kisses a man in a suit—the sugar daddy…and actual daddy of the next horny woman who will appear in the frame.
For the camera then pans even farther up and through a window of the house to bring the viewer into the upstairs floor where another woman—“Saskia”—seems to be feeling equally as romantic as she drops olives into a pair of martini glasses and brings them to the object of her desire, played by Samson Hughes, who doesn’t much care about drinking as he’s led to the couch by this girl and proceeds to watch her do a sexy, stripteasing dance for him, revealing her heart-patterned bra to him as she slips out of her leopard-print dress. Soon, the bra is coming off too, dropped to the floor during the exact moment the beat itself drops and Hughes’, who shall henceforth be referred to as “Loverboy”—even though Shy’s name for him is “Kay”—lust is interrupted by the couple first seen outside the house. The sugar baby and sugar daddy, with the latter horrified to see Saskia’s now interrupted attempt at sexual expression.
And since both Loverboy and Saskia can read that on his face immediately, it’s no wonder Loverboy is instantly on an urgent quest to get the hell out of there before Saskia’s (who might just as well be called “Alyse”) father gives him a beating he won’t soon forget. Accordingly, Loverboy shoves him aside so hard that he falls to the floor, evidently breaking some dishware in the process. But that’s no concern of Loverboy’s as he sprints out of that house with the same urgency as a bat out of hell. Or, say, Lola (Franka Potente) in Run Lola Run. And yes, that, too is another late 90s movie that feels like an influence here as much as the aforementioned Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (both movies were, incidentally, released the same year: 1998).
Running through the streets at a breakneck pace, Loverboy passes by John Ruskin Street, letting the viewer know this is all going down in South London. And so crazed with fear is Loverboy that he smacks into someone on the street standing amidst a small crowd before passing by a chicken shop that gets a bit of play with a scene of an employee putting some chicken into a small bag (surely, this shot must have been included solely for the delight of Amelia Dimoldenberg).
Soon after this moment, a car nearly mows him down, briefly stopping his marathon run before he takes off again, this time filmed in a style that’s more, let’s say, impressionistic. Slow motion-y and erratic, with intercut “snippets” of flashbacks to Saskia. It’s all extremely “high-octane action movie.” Made for wielding The Prodigy-esque beats. And, to that point, Shygirl also told Grimshaw, “You’ve got this, like, big, bold bassline in the background and drums happening that felt very, like, [The] Prodigy… All the music I used to listen to, and what I’m listening to now, like, I just felt like I was being honest with my taste and when [I was] younger and I heard, like, ‘Firestarter’ or something and I was like, ‘Wow is that what music can do?’ That’s kind of what I wanted to feel in the studio with this stuff. I think it’s the best song to reintroduce people to where I’m at.” In addition to reintroducing them to her boyfriend, George Smale, as someone with singing capabilities and not just acting ones—for he’s the one providing additional vocals on the track.
Indeed, his vocals are the most standout not only because of how he sounds, but because the lyrics he delivers are the most divergent from Shygirl mostly repeating, “The air we breathe/The sky we see/You’d reach me still/Come close to me.” After looking over his shoulder all the while, Loverboy finally seems to get back to his own abode right at the moment when Smale (in harmony with Shygirl) sings, “And I was floating out/Till I reached you/Till I touched you/And I was floating out/Till I met you/Till I found you/Spread my arms wide/Fall into yours/Sink into love/Forever.” And as these lyrics play over a scene of Loverboy staring through his own (presumably) peephole, he spies through it a very Dracula-esque display, all erotic and hyper-sexual in nature, with Shygirl herself a part of the tableau.
When she approaches the peephole to stare back at him through it, Loverboy jumps and turns around, only to be met with a fist “kissing” his face. That fist belonging to one of the “goons” employed by Saskia’s sugar daddy. One of the very same goons the viewer saw in the first scene of the video. So it is that Goon 1 then drags Loverboy outside the building—where dawn is now almost breaking—to get some help with roughing him up from Goon 2. The latter also assists Goon 1 with shoving him into the trunk of their car.
When that car then whizzes away, most likely to take Loverboy back to Saskia’s dad to be “dealt with,” the camera reveals Shygirl herself standing on the street, smoking a cigarette. Almost as if to emphasize that she’s the one who’s been recounting this dark love story gone wrong. And that it’s also she who had the avant-garde sensibility to tell it through an action movie-meets-The Prodigy-inspired rhythm in order to convey that, often, love (or even just lust) can be equally as adrenaline-pumping.
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