The Story Behind ‘STARF*CK’ By VANÈS

25-year-old London-Based VANÈS released her newest single ‘Starf*ck’ yesterday, and she tells us all about it.

After focusing on touring and growing her social media following in 2025, “Starf*ck” is VANÈS’s first step into a new era, describing it as a more “baddie dark pop” layer to her artistry.

Now, fans who may have gotten to see her live this past January on Xana’s Until It Wasn’t Tour may recognised the song as the opening track -and one of the many yet unrealeased song- of her setlist.

“This is the first single of many more to come,” the queer shared exclusively with us. “I just started teasing the new project and I will show no signs of stopping. […] The specific singles are not selected yet, it really depends on what my fans resonate with the most and I’ll go from there!”

The Story Behind ‘Starf*ck’

“STARF*CK” stems from a creative burst VANÈS got during a all-female writing camp in London last year.

“STARF*CK was born on the third day of the first female writing camp that I’ve joined in 2025 in London called GRRLS CLUB,” the singer shared. “We all had the best time ever in this super tiny and cozy studio while we were looking for the best way to capture the baddie energy that I wanted for this song. I have so many lists of ideas and words that I love and I remember specifically that I wanted to write a song called “Starf*ck” at some point in the writing camp and the timing and the group I was assigned to just felt so perfect so we did exactly that!”

The song, however, wasn’t planned to be the first single of the German-born singer/songwriter’s new era.

“I initially didn’t plan on STARF*CK being the next single – I was testing multiple snippets online on TikTok the months before my tour and I could already see a slight tendency for the more baddie dark pop songs. And then, while I was trying to figure out what the perfect intro song for the tour would be, “STARF*CK” just felt so perfect. I had to choose what merch I’d like to design and sell soon after that and also felt like “STARF*CK” is such a fun print for a T-shirt, so cheeky and confident, and that’s all I wanted to capture with my music – so after all of that I was just like “You know what..? I love the word STARF*CK, I love the song, I love the intro, I love the merch, I love the meaning.. why not choose this as the first song of my new era?” So I did exactly that and here we are now!”

The Creative Process Behind ‘STARF*CK’

“We were in the Pirate Studios in Dalston where I, Darcy Blu (Co-Writer) and Coletti (Producer) started the song and Coletti and I recorded the vocals in a different studio the days after. There was just something in the air when it comes to this song, it just got stuck in your head after the first session and we tried to come up with more and more backings and production elements to make it more intense and sensual. A couple of weeks later, I asked my other producer Jomo Kru if he’d like to hop onto the production, as he’s part of most of my upcoming songs. We worked so detailed and dedicated on every element of the song, just constantly asking ourselves how we could make this song even better. We started the mixing and mastering process right after I came home from the UK tour in February 2026 to polish everything for the final release of STARF*CK.”

The Music Video of ‘STARF*UCK’

Along with the single, VANÈS premiered the music video for the song, which she worked on with long-time friend and photographer Cosima Wynona.

“I showed [Cosima] my moodboard and direction list for all the shots and vibes that I wanted to go for to visualize that song. She filmed the video with me a week after that. It was all done in my home and I spent around 20 hours editing and color grading the video so that it had this high quality but also some of that home-made effect that I was going for. I really am proud of what we did with the skills and resources that we had and we had the best time ever filming all these scenes!”