Hideous Bastard
Hideous Bastard is the debut solo studio album by Oliver Sim, released on 9 September 2022 by Young. The album runs 34 minutes and 11 seconds and was produced by Jamie xx. It focuses on queerness and Sim’s HIV experience. A short film directed by Yann Gonzalez accompanied the release and premiered at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival; the film later came out on Mubi on 8 September 2022.
Five singles were released around the album:
- Romance with a Memory (10 March 2022) with a video featuring drag queens
- Fruit (6 April 2022) with a video by Gonzalez showing Sim on a talk show
- Hideous (23 May 2022) featuring Jimmy Somerville and addressing HIV
- GMT (7 July 2022), which includes a Beach Boys sample and was inspired by Sim and Jamie xx’s travels
- Run the Credits (8 September 2022) about movie villains and final girls
An orchestral version of Fruit was released on 4 August 2023 for the Red, White & Royal Blue soundtrack. A Jamie xx remix of GMT (with Floating Points) came out on 22 August 2023 and was nominated for Best Independent Remix at the 2023 AIM Independent Music Awards. The Hideous short film trailer appeared on 11 August 2022. The three-part horror musical follows a young queer boy living with HIV and features Sim, Jamie xx, Jimmy Somerville, Bimini, Fehinti Balogun, César Vicente, and Kate Moran. It was filmed in London, premiered at Cannes on 22 May 2022, and was released on Mubi on 8 September 2022.
Reception: Metacritic gives the album a score of 80 out of 100 based on 12 critic reviews, indicating generally favorable opinions. All lyrics are by Oliver Sim, with music by Sim and James Smith and others credited.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 12:02 (CET).