Poppy - I Disagree

The Quietus

Yes, this thrash metal hellion named “Poppy” is the same twee, girlish enigma who gained internet virality through sheer confusion over her expressionless YouTube uploads from a world of candy-floss pink. In the same way Daft Punk kept their audience at an unnerving distance by affecting an alien blankness, Poppy’s mask is her face. In her online curios she wore peroxide blonde-hair and had a pristine aesthetic which bordered on the aryan: anticipating an AI-infatuated future while parodying the angelic dream-girl it’s easy to imagine a man would choose for human form. Her early music was equally bright; an AG Cook simulacrum with a surrealism indebted to Lynch. Bathing her kitsch avatar in bloodlust, thrash metal and bondage gear makes I Disagree a thrilling twist in the narrative.

These songs are loose and wild: like her videos, they thrive on absurdity, and are often exhilarating in the way great rock songs are. The title track is a genuine thrill, while ‘Anything Like Me’ features both a ripping guitar-solo and one of the sweetest passages on the record. There are moments which veer towards pastiche – the screamed vocals on ‘Fill The Crown’ sound less like an alien playing at being human and more like a twenty-five year old playing at being Slayer – but largely she avoids imitation. Opening track ‘Concrete’ swings from thrash, 2000s radio-pop and a gorgeous section where the Poppy algorithm is hacked by Brian Wilson. She sings the lyric “bury me six feet deep / cover me in concrete” unperturbed: the words ominous in one phase and surreal in the cherubic next.

Clearly, Poppy’s discovery of nu-metal doesn’t come with an interest in operating solely in that mould. Rock isn’t dead, but its function has changed. When ascendant, its sonic attributes were so universal they leaked into even the jazz of Miles Davis. Ironically, now on the back-step, from pop to hip-hop it’s deployed in a similarly equivocal way: just another palette to be painted with. Several artists from Grimes to Rita Sawayama have recently adopted nu-metal aesthetics to rage against those who define them by one single aspect of themselves; now Poppy joins them, retaining sweeter sounds amongst the fury.

This juxtaposition is the thrill of I Disagree. Nick Cave famously opined that the key to great songwriting is counterpoint: “you send in a clown, say, on a tricycle and you wait and you watch. And if that doesn’t do it, you shoot the clown”. Counterpoint is at the core of Poppy’s appeal: here she roles out her bubble-gum persona, and she shoots her with metal, power electronics and rage. The result is very convincing; as much a young artist finding her voice as an AI besting the machine. 

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Pitchfork 65

The cryptic YouTuber’s new album is the first to fully embrace the upsetting qualities of her video works, folding elements of nu-metal and grindcore into her seasick melange.

The Guardian 60

(Sumerian)
Breaking free of her rigidly controlled persona, the former YouTube sensation’s new album is repetitive but sincere

Moriah Pereira, AKA Poppy, emerged in 2014 as a YouTube sensation, pitched as a fictional character: a video of her eating candy floss garnered over two million views. When she started releasing albums on Diplo’s label, it was impossible to separate her performance art from her bubblegum pop. But as Poppy’s fictional world expanded, Pereira became embroiled in IRL controversy. She and character co-creator Titanic Sinclair were sued for plagiarism by Sinclair’s former partner. Poppy defended Sinclair, until 2019, when she accused him of “manipulative patterns” and they parted ways.

On her new LP, Poppy is heavy with industry baggage, but liberated, too: she has a new label and is operating without her former collaborator. I Disagree opens with Concrete and the sinister whisper “bury me six feet deep”: her lyrics circle themes of death, rebirth, vengeance and freedom.

The Guardian 60

(Sumerian)

Real name Moriah Pereira, Poppy is a YouTube-born character who has been described as both an alien and a cult leader (she has, of course, released a book, The Gospel of Poppy). I Disagree is her third studio album, and it finds the LA-based creator pushing into more eclectic territory than ever – which is saying something, given how her earlier work blended the off-kilter sheen of PC Music with a hyperactive iteration of ska.

Self-described as “post-genre”, Poppy channels early Gwen Stefani (replete with the interest in Japanese kawaii, or cuteness) and whispery, dark, glee-club theatrics – think Billie Eilish gone hair metal.