A Futurist Unmasked: Jasmine Sokko’s Burnout Dynasty Is an Electro-Pop Explosion

BY
Joel Chang

Lead Editor

Hype Issue #62

Published on

May 23, 2025

Join Joel Chang as he unpacks the meaning of each track behind Jasmine Sokko’s futuristic and introspective debut album, Burnout Dynasty.

Singapore’s music scene has quietly been on the up. The surge of digital media and interconnectivity has given birth to a new generation of genre blending, unapologetically self-expressive talent. 

From Gentle Bones’ heartfelt, minimalist pop ballads, to Regina Song’s R&B-infused vocals, and Yung Raja’s bilingual Tamil-English hip-hop, this new wave of Singaporean artists are no longer just chasing trends — they’re setting them. At the forefront of this movement is the queen of Singaporean electro-pop, who just dropped her long-awaited debut album, cementing her place as one of the leading voices in the local music scene.

Photo Credit : Joel Low

Jasmine Sokko’s Burnout Dynasty landed on March 28, 2025 and it’s a genre-defying plunge into Asian Futurism, introspection, and reinvention. Sokko sheds her mask—both literally and metaphorically—to deliver a sound that is bold, cinematic, and deeply personal.

With just nine tracks across 20 minutes, Burnout Dynasty is lean but packs a punch. It dives headfirst into themes of ambition, burnout and perseverance. Blending unique themes of Asian Futurism and cyberpunk influences to form her signature sound, Sokko has created a fictional universe that is uniquely hers.

Dynasty in Disarray 

The album opens with Origin, a glitchy, layered prelude that sets the thematic tone—a deliberate, minimalist soundscape that signals the start of an internal journey.

Rolling into the title track Burnout Dynasty, which sets the narrative and thesis for the rest of the project. The track explores themes of burnout (go figure), the toxic culture of overachievement in Singapore, and the cost of ambition. 

Jasmine Sokko 楚晴 – BURNOUT DYNASTY (Official Music Video)

Sokko weighs the price of achieving arbitrary measures of success in Singapore, ultimately leading to burnout and fatigue, especially in a country where identity is often tied to societal status. The song poses an intriguing overarching question: what does it mean for a society to thrive if its people are quietly burning out?

This tension carries into Spirited Away, where Sokko expresses the numbing aftermath of that pressure — dissociation, invisibility, and the urge to escape. 

Despite its melancholic tone, the track shimmers with quiet resilience, as she affirms she is “still living despite it all.” Together, the first three songs form an interesting thematic arc for the rest of the album to explore — from awakening, to confrontation, to survival.

Flipping the script

Shangri-La carries the album’s existential weight further, diving into the illusion of a perfect life. With a vocal tone echoing Burnout Dynasty, Sokko sings of an oasis that always seems one step too far. 

“Tired of reacting to all the noises, then taken for granted”, Sokko confronts the toxic myth that if you work hard enough, you’ll find peace. The song wrestles with traditional expectations passed down from one generation to the next, the pressure to chase stability, and the frustration of realising that such ideals may have been unattainable from the start. 

Manifesto brings about the album’s emotional pivot. Gone is the passive yearning — instead replaced by a sense of ownership and defiant self-assertion. Sokko finds it within herself to regain her agency, and it’s a bold reclamation of identity where her success will be determined on her own terms.

Mask Off 

Black Lotus is a powerful track with a more menacing tone. Sokko leans into it with pride, asserting her success despite facing challenges like criticism and burnout. The track sends a message to her critics, declaring that their noise only makes her sharper. As part of the album’s overarching theme, Black Lotus marks her transition from internal chaos to external command. 

The album concludes with Fortune Cat, the finale that turns her journey into triumph. Sokko cheekily flips the script: no longer passively waiting for good luck but instead making her own. The track oozes self-made confidence, closing BURNOUT DYNASTY not with collapse, but with control. Similar to her music video for Burnout Dynasty, Sokko ends the album on a high note, emerging not just intact, but evolved — akin to a butterfly after metamorphosis. 

The Verdict

While the album may not be perfect, as most albums tend to be, there are definitely strengths and weaknesses to be dissected. Sokko does a great job weaving the narrative of the album together cohesively, with the majority of the songs playing a part in the “story arc” at hand here.

Some could argue that the 8th song on the album, Lanterns, might be a tad bit out of place. While it is definitely an emotional track that holds a lot of weight, it appears to be veering off from the narrative of the album up until that point before resuming again with the final track of the project.

Additionally, the delivery of her message has a tendency to be a touch too literal at times. Sokko has a message she wants to portray, and she really does go after it. While the album is relatable for anyone feeling the weight of expectations and going through hardships, the delivery of the message could have benefitted from some symbolism or allegory to perhaps challenge listeners to come up with their own creative interpretations of her music.

On the flip side, the album’s greatest strength lies in its sound and aesthetic, which is uniquely Jasmine Sokko. Her use of textured synths, distorted basslines, and robotic vocal layering leaves a very distinct and recognisable musical footprint unlike anything else in the local music scene. 

Burnout Dynasty is an extremely solid first album from Jasmine Sokko, and she will undoubtedly continue to evolve and refine her craft in the future. As her sound aesthetic continues to develop, boundaries will no doubt be stretched and challenged. We will certainly be waiting with eager anticipation.

RATING: 7.3/10 

STANDOUT TRACKS: Burnout Dynasty, Black Lotus, Fortune Cat