The Paris Review
On Paris Hilton’s latest dalliance with pop, ‘Infinite Icon,’ and the cost of a banger
It is now conventional wisdom that “Stars Are Blind,” the 2006 single by Paris Hilton, is a camp-pop classic, its dreamy breathiness surfing the soft breaks of a vague reggae wave. Written by Sheppard Solomon, Ralph McCarthy, and Fernando Garibay—the latter of whom went on to work with Lady Gaga, Nicki Minaj, and Kylie Minogue—the song embodied the candied nature of Y2K pop and also the moment in which Hilton was a massive cultural force, dominating tabloids and popularizing random L.A. haunts with the flick of a credit card (Kitson, anyone?). With a dramatic reggaetón remix by Luny Tunes and Wisin & Yandel, “Stars Are Blind” became a cheeky dancefloor staple in the nearly two decades since its release—beloved enough that, last year, Hilton released a glossy refix (“Paris’ Version”) featuring Kim Petras mewling “that’s hot” in Auto-Tune.
Paris’ self-titled debut album was, in some ways, the embodiment of rockists’ worst-faith ideas about pop music: that the songs were written by others and presented by a commercially attractive avatar with negligible talent. When Paris dropped in 2006, it was widely seen as a cynical way to literally capitalize on her popularity (also to counter the widely held notion that she didn’t actually do anything, like, for a job). Said popularity was weird because, while she was a pedestalized, hyper-thin white woman who had such a hold on certain young women that teacup dogs and visible hip-bones became national trends, it coincided with a cultural desire to denigrate her, though not really for the most obvious reasons (conspicuous consumption, racist and homophobic statements). Paris was easy to shit on because she was a party-loving heiress with seemingly very little to say beyond her catchphrase, culminating in the awful reality show The Simple Life, which mined “hilarity” out of two nepo babies being forced to live like commoners.
In 2024, as the trend towards righting the sexist wrongs of the 2000s parallels the revival of some of its worst music styles and fashion trends, Paris herself has undergone a transformation. Now 43, she has spent the last decade-plus cultivating her DJ career in the mega-clubs of Ibiza, even briefly signing with Cash Money Records. She’s also a best-selling memoirist and a celebrity representative for the movement against the so-called “troubled teen” industry, serious enough to have testified before Congress about banning the kinds of abusive reform schools she was sent to as a child. (In one interview, she claimed the school’s militaristic environment cultivated the racist and homophobic language she later used, which, if you’ve seen any one of the several documentaries about those institutions, is both believable and convenient.) And her sex tape has finally been recognized for what it was: an early example of revenge porn, set loose on the internet by an awful ex.
It’s in this landscape that Hilton recently released her second album, Infinite Icon, in which she nods to her place in the culture as a living artifact of Y2K kitsch; proffers music ripe for her DJ sets, alongside big-name collaborators; and attempts to balance the campy fun that made “Stars Are Blind” so indelible with her life as a wizened 43-year-old. She often presents herself as someone who’s highly serious about being highly unserious. At its best, the album is satisfying for those of us who revel in the absurd, with Paris’ consistently decent alto purveying kooky bangers that shine through her more generic stabs at earnest dance-pop stardom. And even if you don’t love absurdism, you may at least marvel at her ability to effectively convey vocal fry via song.
In reinventing herself—and the press reinventing her as a site of (ironic?) subversion—Paris hasn’t totally lost sense of the unmitigated camp that made her interesting the first time around. Self-aware and cooing in the sexy-baby voice she admits is part of the persona she’s crafted, Infinite Icon is meant to further said persona while dressing it up in the added context she’s given us in the years since she first danced on a table. Its cover, which features an airbrushed Hilton hovering goddess-like above a lavender dusk setting on Mount Olympus, calls to mind both a CGI video game and the back flap of the Xanadu soundtrack, presenting her as a decadent avatar who is canny about her place in the culture—or at least the cover artist is. (“Microsoft Copilot is so talented,” one person on the Gaga Daily forum quipped.)
Infinite Icon opens with “Welcome Back,” which wouldn’t sound out of place in the next Rusical challenge, and is begging for a lip-sync assassin to interpretive dance to lines like, “Welcome back/Bitch, you’ve been missed.” (Earlier this month, I saw a delightful off-Broadway musical by the drag performer Alaska Thunderfuck, and thought that a few of the better songs from that could have made it onto Infinite Icon, albeit with about $36,000 more dollars of studio polish.) But things too quickly sway into the realm of the straight-faced, with a sassy breakup track that would sound good in the buffet line of a Sandals (“Chasin’,” featuring Meghan Trainor) and a wobbly dance track that would sound good at the swim-up bar of a Sandals (“I’m Free” [to sample Ultra Naté, apparently], featuring Rina Sawayama). These songs and more (“Infinity,” “If the Earth Is Spinning” featuring Sia) may have you contemplating the sanitized way Las Vegas lobby culture changed dance pop; the centrifugal pull of corporate raves are one thing, but something about the chlorine smell of a casino has wafted too heavily into the studios where many such songs are being crafted.
Still, Infinite Icon also serves as a kind of Baby Magic-scented companion piece to Hilton’s aforementioned memoir. One of its most interesting songs, “ADHD,” explores her own diagnosis over an earnest piano ballad with a cooing chorus: “I was so down, thought I’d never be free/My superpower was right inside, see?/It was ADHD.” I don’t doubt she’s serious as a heart attack—she expounded on said superpower at length in her book—but she also knows she’s making a cheeky anthem for the Vyvanse girlies to feel seen and make TikToks about it.
Similarly, the bottle-service techno track “Bad Bitch Academy” invites Megan Thee Stallion to adjunct at the Hilton School for Club Baddies, though even the video’s bananas amount of product placements couldn’t pay for Meg herself to show up (her presence is replaced by a different Meg—Trainor—plus Lance Bass and Heidi Klum). It’s the kind of dumb fun you’d want from a Paris Hilton album if you’re getting one anyway, a chance to submerge oneself in a feathered-and-rhinestoned Appletini fantasy.
The most pleasurable parts of Infinite Icon are both a reminder that we live in a dystopian capitalist hellhole and also that pop music doesn’t really need to be that deep, two thoughts I am trying to hold at the same time. On “Legacy,” one of a few songs where Paris questions whether all this fame was worth it, a guitar gestures at pop-punk before it’s subsumed by a ’90s disco-pop chorus. She dismisses her copious worldly possessions and affirms her love for her man (who, btw, is a venture capitalist), and she sounds like Barbie—or at least the cassettes they sometimes gave out with Barbies, look it up—when she sings that “lovin’ you is my legacy.” It doesn’t matter if Paris means it; she’s bringing us along rather than throwing her status in our faces, which is what makes some of this record so much fun.
Infinite Icon is far from high art, but its best moments are high camp. Sure, Hilton’s style of fame has been a net negative for society, but she’s still the celebrity American culture deserves. We’ll always have—or be stuck with—Paris. So why not try to enjoy a couple of brain-in-pudding bangers while we’re at it?
