If you don’t know who Poppy is, well. You might never, really. Or, maybe, we all will. At this point it is too early to tell. Well, YOU will know about her, since you’re reading this currently, but… ah, well, I’ve gone and wasted a paragraph.
My relationship with Poppy is fairly recent, a little over a month ago when I stumbled on a lore video and followed where the source came from. What I found was about 200 videos ranging from just weird to oddly comical, from strangely prophetic to downright off-putting. Eventually it is revealed that Poppy is a singer and she has been recording pop songs (get her name, yet?).
Through careful examination of the videos, her songs’ lyrics, and all of her public appearances and social media, it becomes clear very quickly that Poppy – and her manager Titanic Sinclair – are simply living art pieces, meant to showcase how vain and stupid pop music is, how crazy people get about celebrity status (both obtaining it and worshiping it). How far this message goes will vary on a person-to-person basis, but she is hugely popular on YouTube for a reason: she is unnerving, her videos are short and well made, and the music, in the end, is catchy as fuck.
Sorry for the long preamble, but now that her first full album is out, I felt it wise to really give a fast-and-dirty look at the two year history that brought us to last weekend when poppy.computer hit digital store shelves. And, now that its out and I’ve listened to it, what do I think?
It is fucking ear candy.
The opening track, “I’m Poppy” is a great introduction piece to the album and the artist as a whole. It has the upbeat synth sounds and the infectious beats required for a great pop song. It is also a great litmus test: if you can’t stand this song, you won’t make it far in the album.
The music continues to be catchy as hell and is about a wide-range of surface-level concepts such as loving computers, cell phones, and pop music as a whole (sometimes personified). Other songs are literally just about how great Poppy is and how great it is to be Poppy. But the lyrics themselves are mostly throw-away. Examples include these gems from the penultimate track, “Software Upgrade”:
“I turn you off, I turn you on,
and off and off and on and on
and off and off and on and on and on”
and the regretfully lamentable
“You never make me any food,
And you are never in the mood,
So come on baby tell me,
Are you gay?”
But despite this, I challenge you not to get the hooks in “Let’s Make A Video” stuck in your head. And your heart:
“I love you when you’re happy, I love you when you’re down” will be stuck rattling between my ears for quite some time. Equally catchy? All of “Interweb” – despite its minimalist take on a Gaga-style track. But there is something genius about “I forgot what my password is… maybe its Password123” due both to the insanity of that being a lyric and, well, Poppy’s infatuation with numbers throughout both this album and the lore up to this point.
There’s some weak stuff in the middle, namely “Fuzzy” and “Moshi Moshi” but these still have energy and spunk to spare. While they won’t be the album’s most played tracks, they for sure still fit the themes and message of the album as a whole.
By the acoustic closing tracks, “Pop Music”, though the gig is up, or should be to an attentive listener; Poppy (whose real name is Moriah Pereira and she’s 22, but not as young as some people creepily wish she was) can sing. And that’s the real joke on all of us (and all of those buying her music). Many people come to see Poppy’s videos and listen to her songs because she’s weird, creepy, and/or they find her cute. But if you come to this album and get past the (intentionally) shit lyrics, you’ll find there’s something there.
This album is fun, energetic, mysteriously devoid of anything that comes off as “fake” and is a hilarious jab at pop musicians today, from Lady Gaga to Taylor Swift. If you don’t think this chick is on to something, you’re wrong. I wager we’ll be hearing more and more from her, Titanic Sinclair, and Charlotte the mannequin (yeah, that’s right) in the next few years. I just can’t believe they’re getting away with this, because if they are successful then we, as consumers of this product, will have taken part in one of the craziest, most in depth art experiment I’ve ever seen or heard of, especially in my lifetime.
And Poppy will be laughing all the way to the bank.
Added December 19, 2017
Fixed a couple of spelling errors and also want to amend a previous statement by saying “Moshi Moshi” is a great song and anyone that says otherwise is a liar and I will fight them.
skylerbartels 