“There was a building there / And it was Brutalist.”
Kim Petras’s standout song “Brutalist” from her new album Detour has captured the ears and hearts of the music community. The nightfeelings and Porches-produced track tells the story of Petras and her architect father mourning a demolished brutalist building that they used to pass while driving to Petras’s appointments for her gender-affirming care.
A sharp-eyed commenter under The FADER’s YouTube interview with Petras identified the building. “Holy shit, I actually know which brutalist building she was talking about in Hamburg. I lived right next to it,” @alphajuliet135 commented on May 30. Another commenter, @marvelous4352, chimed in, noting it as the “‘”post-pyramide hamburg.’” A representative from Petras’s team confirmed to The FADER that the Post-Pyramide in Hamburg is the building that inspired the song.