Boombox Blitz: STF re-stages heartbreak as sci-fi wet dream in ‘Lookalike’
The pop newcomer enjoys a sci-fi rearrangement of his pain, calling out his ex-lover.
Welcome to Boombox Blitz, an artist spotlight series showcasing overlooked singers, songwriters and musicians who are quietly taking over the world.
Heartbreak is the most universal avenues of pain. Our porcelain heart shatters across the hardwood, shards scattering in dark red spools. We pick up the pieces, lick our wounds and attempt to move on with our lives, as impossible as it might seem. The sun and moon continue to play peek-a-boo up and over the horizon, time a relentless force as it carves out more distance between who we were and who we are now. But one fleeting glance of an ex-lover from across the room can send you spiraling out of control and back down the crag of dejection. Pop outsider Stefan Poole spins like a top on the concrete with his debut single. “Lookalike” is a slice of pure heaven and evokes the ’80s dance-club scene as a mechanism to process and cope.
Going by his stage name STF (pronounced “Stef”), Poole unthreads his emotions in a flurry of lasers, beady body sweat and the blinding surrealism of the dance floor. “Said no one would love me like you do / Never knew those words could come so cheap to you,” he manages to sputter out on the opening lyric, collecting himself up off the ground before unboxing a 1-2 sucker punch. He goes for a knockout on the hook, exposing his lover’s proclivity for fake, second rate lovers, “Annotation, he’s not the real me, baby / Congratulations, you found a knock-off of me / Wasting all your love on a lookalike.”
Unsurprisingly, Poole draws upon a wealth of his own agony and experience. “After my last relationship ended, I went to my ex’s Facebook page and found out that she was already dating somebody new, and this guy was basically my doppelgänger — same haircut, same facial hair and style. And I thought, ‘You couldn’t have me, so you found the closest thing,'” he recalls.
His emotional journey far from over, the newcomer allows himself a second to breathe in his past for one last parting gift. The visual (directed by Andrew LaDon) is an enchanting sci-fi, gender-flipped update to the timeless Frankenstein myth, wielding a Star Trek skin and a vibrant wash of neons and glowing outlines. “Although ‘Lookalike’ comes from a real life story, the music video was a chance for Andre and I to indulge our inner sci-fi nerds. I’m just amazed it came out so incredible considering the whole thing was just us two,” says Poole, who once starred as the backing band in Glee. “The first question people ask is ‘what was budget?’ or ‘how big was the crew?,’ but really, it was just me and Andre. I hired a few people, rented out a couple studios, and the rest was his genius.”
“Lookalike,” an impressive first outing, is the kind of gripping fantasy that makes no-names arena-selling superstars.
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