by Jack Gillespie

The story of the character Poppy is one critical of the fake, manipulative, toxic culture of celebrity. For years, the character of Poppy was built up as a robotic, detached shell of a human-like being whose attempts to relate to the common person as a fellow normal human exposed exactly what is at the core of the character. If you remove all of the insane, complex lore that built up as the unsettling atmosphere of an average video from the pop star/Youtuber/method actress grew larger and larger, the same message came through; the celebrities and pop culture figures we look up too as inspiration are all fake. So how the story of Poppy the person, AKA Moriah Pereira, unfolded turned out to be a sickeningly poignant case of irony.

The first domino fell when Mars Argo, a former collaborator with and girlfriend of Titanic Sinclair, the creative director behind a lot of the Poppy project, came out with a lawsuit that accused Sinclair of copying her identity and artistry with Poppy, as well as accusations of physical and mental abuse. The evidence was damning, and it became more and more obvious that the history of Sinclair and Argo was one of manipulation and artistic control on Sinclair’s part. So when Poppy announced her split from Sinclair as collaborators and shared similar stories to Argo’s of Sinclair’s manipulation just weeks before the release of ‘I Disagree,’ the future of what the project that is Poppy would be had never been more simultaneously clear and mysterious since the lawsuit. Now that Poppy had separated from someone who had a huge role in her success, what next? She ended her statement with this: “I am happier than I have ever been and I am excited to move forward.”

Poppy sounds free for the first time ever

If I Disagree could be labeled as a part of this moving forward, Poppy has expressed this newfound happiness in one of the strangest ways imaginable, as it features some of the darkest, heaviest, metal material Poppy has ever released. However, the happiness and freedom does ring out. Never before on a record has Poppy sounded so visceral, so dynamic, so human. And lyrically, even though Titanic Sinclair is still credited on every track of I Disagree, so many of the lyrics across the record read as a rebellion: a break-off from a domineering, controlling figure could definitely fit a certain former collaborator/director. It could also just fit into the constant satire and critique of the toxicity of the music industry that has defined Poppy’s material, but if the shoe fits, it could easily be about Sinclair.

The title track is a wonderful first taste of this main theme, as it’s a blunt line drawn in the sand: “I disagree with the way you continue to pressure me / I disagree with the way you are failing to pleasure me / I disagree, everything is going how it’s meant to be.” The chorus demands to let everything burn down, which is a great primer for everything else the record brings lyrically. “Sit/Stay” is similarly blunt in its description of being controlled, using commands for dogs within the hook. She’s able to take this directness in interesting directions as well; “BLOODMONEY” adds the twist of a religious angle to the theme. “Anything Like Me,” while it is the clumsiest of all of these listed mentioned lyrics-wise, confronts the Mars Argo lawsuit, a situation that was no doubt conflicting for Poppy, and the lyrics definitely illustrate that conflict. The concept of a person (Poppy) being considered a copyright infringing product is definitely something not everybody has to deal with, but oddly feels on brand for the Poppy character.

The fact that whether the perspective of these tracks is coming from the person behind Poppy, Moriah Pereria, or the character Poppy that has been the focus of all of her previous records can come into question is a watershed moment. For almost the entirety of the project, Poppy never felt like a real person; that was the point. It was hard to emotionally connect to anything on albums like ‘Am I A Girl?’ or ‘Poppy.Computer’, and the type of celebrity-focused satire that Poppy made was never really making a point that decades of satirical work hadn’t already beaten to death. Celebrities are fake and only pretend to relate to their fans: not really the most groundbreaking critique. Now that there is actually emotion and an urgent, personal message behind the music on I Disagree, the critiques of the music industry actually have some bite to it.

Poppy’s metal side has never sounded more brutal or natural

Something that definitely adds to that bite is the new sonic direction of I Disagree that sees Poppy fully embrace metal. Elements of metal have had a role in Poppy’s music before; tracks like “Play Destroy” and “X’ off of ‘Am I A Girl?’ are significant examples. However, especially with “X,” the previous cases seemed to simply treat the introduction of the sound as a tongue-in-cheek gimmick; from the jarring transitions between the fiery alt-metal and cartoonishly chipper sunshine pop to Poppy cooing innocently “Ooh, so heavy!” as the song starts with chugging metal guitars.

On I Disagree, it’s a night and day difference. The metal elements on this new record are so much more fleshed-out, versatile, and mature. Even when she returns to the trick of contrasting the hardcore metal with sweet pop on tracks like “Concrete” and “Anything Like Me,” she is able to pull it off so much more effectively, even if the sweetness of the former’s is potent enough to give anyone a toothache. But some of the best moments on I Disagree see Poppy diving head-first into a variety of shades of metal. The title track shows that Poppy can make a metal track just as infectious as her more pop-style songs (if not more so) and “BLOODMONEY” is one of the hardest hitting, most abrasive songs to come from an artist of her popularity; the suffocating cacophony of the industrial percussion and distorted harsh noise on the track’s chorus is brutal enough to shake even the most hardcore of metalheads. Even the weakest track songwriting-wise on the album, “Bite Your Teeth,” makes up for the lack of lyrical content and sonic experimentation with being the most conventionally heavy track on the record (aside from “BLOODMONEY,” of course). The production on the guitars and percussion on that track are absolutely stellar.

I Disagree is aesthetically cohesive, yet sonically versatile

The musical style of I Disagree is definitely one of the album’s strongest points, but Poppy is smart enough to throw some detours to bring some sonic variety to the record. “Nothing I Need” definitely stands out the most within the tracklist; the dreamy, synthetic instrumentation and the main vocal melody call back to ‘Currents’-era Tame Impala. However, it is a beautiful breather of a track that brings some of the best lyrics to the album, featuring Poppy meditating over the fact that everything and everyone that dominated each and every thought of hers never mattered in the end.

Then there are the last two tracks of the record, which feel like they work together as a potent one-two punch to end the record. “Sick of the Sun” features these fittingly sun-dried guitars that give the track a lethargic, neo-psychedelic sound that compliment the lyrics about depression and the exhaustion from her current life. It feels like the first time listeners have gotten this level of emotional vulnerability and humanity on a Poppy album. This isn’t Poppy; it’s Moriah. And the album is wrapped up perfectly with “Don’t Go Outside,” which stands as the longest, most ambitious track on the album with elements of psychedelic rock and pop, alternative rock, and metal all meshing together naturally. It carries over many of the themes of the track that precedes it, struggles with mental health and self-isolation being the main ones featured on the first half of the track. However, through a clever interpolation of multiple previous songs on the album, the track also puts a beautiful bow on the box of angry, frustrated, and exhausted emotions bundled up in I Disagree. After all of the toxic, manipulative, and controlling factors of your life have all dissipated and left you sitting in the middle of the ashes of your past life, there is still hope to rebuild, to rekindle a better version of yourself.

Top Tracks:

“I Disagree”

“BLOODMONEY”

“Sick of the Sun”

“Don’t Go Outside”

Recommended if you like:

Grimes

Rina Sawayama

BABYMETAL

Mars Argo

Featured Image: Pitchfork

I Disagree 9.2 Awesome ‘I Disagree’ is the perfect album for Poppy at this very moment. The first thing one would want to do when leaving a toxic relationship, especially when it has defined you for so long, is to burn the bridges still connected to that relationship and start anew. These ten tracks are a perfect exorcism of all of the struggles, constriction, and abuse Poppy dealt with for so long, doing a perfect job of burning aforementioned bridges. Simultaneously, Poppy has reached the fullest potential of a sound she has been working towards for a while, and now has a style that is uniquely hers and is ripe for more even more evolution and experimentation in the future. We finally have an album from Poppy’s true self. Poppy is dead, long live Poppy. Lyrics 8.8

Instrumentation 9.2

Concept 9.5

Jack is a Journalism major and Sociology minor who has been writing about media for over four years. He used to be a pop music nerd, then an indie music nerd, and now both. If you’ve heard of something queer, pretentious, or artsy, he probably has something to say about it.

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