Not one for the mainstream listener.
YouTube personality Moriah Rose Pereira, known as Poppy, dives into the world of heavy metal and sugary pop to create an unsettling listening experience.
Poppy’s early videos are a trip. A ten-minute video of her merely saying her stage name, for instance, has racked up 23 million views. Her music injects that post-modernist humour too, and now she’s added heavy metal into the mix.
I Disagree is Poppy’s latest venture. Across the album, there’s this balance of disgusting guitar licks, and quick spurs of cutesy singing that are lighter than a feather. Take the opening track ‘Concrete’, where listeners are instantly punched in the throat with lightning-fast guitar riffs only to be cushioned by taps of what sounds like a harpsichord and Poppy’s angelic singing. Standout track ‘Bite Your Teeth’ disorients the listener with manic heavy metal riffs and pretty, shiny vocals. It reminds me of BABYMETAL or the recent work from Kero Kero Bonito.
Yet, what’s confusing about this album is that it cannot stay on track with what it wants to be. Aside from her fans and the YouTube community at large, this project dips its feet into different music crevices but doesn’t occupy any of them long enough. You need to really know Poppy’s style and humour to appreciate I Disagree, a top-heavy album with some exciting highs but a number of forgettable ideas.
6
