On Glitterati, Scott Argiro—the Pittsburgh-born, Colorado-based multi-instrumentalist who records as Argyro—wrestles with one of pop’s most enduring paradoxes: how to celebrate the performance of fame while questioning its worth. Across nine tracks that shimmer with coastal pop gloss and rhythmic muscle, he blurs the line between persona and person, turning the glitter into both costume and confession.
The title track, “Glitterati,” opens with repetition that borders on hypnosis. “Glitterati… Glitterati… Glitterati,” he chants, as if trying to convince himself he belongs among them. Over polished guitar lines and steady percussion, Argyro constructs an anthem that both mocks and mourns celebrity. The song’s narrator is self-aware enough to know he’s “on the D-list,” but he wears the badge proudly. It’s performance as protest—part satire, part self-portrait.
Argyro is a drummer by trade, and his rhythmic instincts shape the album’s backbone. The beats are confident but never mechanical; they breathe, they lilt, they flirt with imperfection. On “Cool Shades,” he leans into a laid-back, sun-faded groove that recalls the breezy warmth of early John Mayer or Jason Mraz, yet his vocal phrasing suggests something more reflective. What sounds like an easy summer day—“Walkin’ on water, sippin’ devotion”—hints at escape from the chaos that fame and expectation create.
“She’s So LA” offers a different kind of sunlight: seductive, blinding, dangerous. Over a rolling rhythm section and chiming guitars, Argyro sketches a portrait of a woman who doubles as a metaphor for Los Angeles itself—beautiful, elusive, and unattainable. “You almost made me crash,” he sings, and you believe him. It’s not just about desire; it’s about surrender to a culture that conflates love with image.
Even in its more ostentatious moments, Glitterati never feels detached. “The Phenomenon,” featuring rapper Troof, is Argyro’s most theatrical track—a tongue-in-cheek declaration of grandeur that could easily slip into parody. But instead, it lands as playful self-commentary. When he proclaims, “Here comes the phenomenon,” it’s less a boast than a challenge to the listener: How much of our own identity is performance?
The album’s quieter half peels back the polish to reveal its emotional core. “House Upon the Mountainside” is a meditative return home, a song rooted in geography and memory. Its imagery—fog, firelight, tea, and time—anchors the record in something tangible, a place where success doesn’t matter and silence becomes sanctuary. And “Lifeline,” the closing track, transforms reflection into resolution. “Everyone’s tongue is shaped like a knife,” Argyro observes, before reaching toward unity: “We’re all just the same, blood and love in our veins.” The lyric feels like an antidote to a fractured world, a final plea for connection beyond vanity.
Glitterati is not a record obsessed with perfection—it’s a study in contrast. Argyro embraces sheen but refuses to let it erase substance. His melodies are accessible, his production contemporary, but what lingers is the humanity: the awareness that beneath every spotlight lies a shadow. In confronting that truth, Argyro delivers not just an album about stardom, but one about survival.
–John Parker
