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Let's Talk About: Poppy's "X"

Let’s talk about... is a weekly stream of consciousness, focusing on a single song, by a single artist, that merits discussion.

By THE DRUNKEN AMBASSADORPublished 5 years ago 6 min read
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If you’ve at all plumbed the depths of "entertainment" found on Poppy’s YouTube channel, you’ll most likely chalk up a list of adjectives: Strange, twisted, black-humoured, surreal, and disturbing. Hundreds of Poppy’s videos are punctuated by feelings ranging from dead-eyed nonsense to extreme unease—an omnipresent dread suspending the viewer in a state of delirium and paranoia, something akin to feeling that, somehow, this is something we shouldn’t be watching.

Naturally, this warrants questioning: Who is this doe-eyed, almost robotic girl, and what is her mission? Why does she constantly refer to herself in the third- person? Why is the world she inhabits so sterile and devoid of real emotion? Research will tell you that Poppy is all an act, but to what extent?

Is this art, or something more?

By this point in time, the Poppy discussion has all but dissolved the mysticism surrounding the Poppy project, so what we are left with is something more exciting for newcomers and avid explorers of YouTube: Two individuals, Moriah Rose Pereira and Corey Michael Mixter (under the performance name Titanic Sinclair), create performances that baffle and confuse to great lengths with each short video. Poppy ruminates on emotions and topics such as love, hate, opinion, vanity, technology, humanity, and life itself, all at variable lengths and depths. Rinse, repeat, profit, the steady rate-of-interest and aforementioned discussion has given Poppy a now impregnable following, and it’s difficult to see it waning in the scheme of past, present, and future discovery.

When dissecting a song like "X," the closing track from 2018’s Am I A Girl?, this context is all but necessary for explaining the way it completely subverts her approach to artistry. Fusing the powers of metal and flower power, with an added dose of hypnotic, acid-tinged house, "X" is both completely at odds with everything around it, and entirely in line with what Poppy is attempting to express on her second studio album.

Am I A Girl? is masterful at showing the ways Poppy can twist genre to reflect identity. By example, "X," with its collision of violence and harmony, contorts and twirls amidst the lavish, Madonna-esque opulence of "The Rapture Ball," or the flamenco-dipped instrumentation of "Aristocrat." A couple examples, but the difference lies in how singular "X" continues to feel after so many listens. While Am I A Girl? is a more competent and evolved project following 2016's Poppy.Computer, in both sound and vision, it is only another chapter in the Poppy story—and an even more puzzling one at that.

This is why "X" is so vital to unlocking the mysteries of Am I A Girl? and exploring what makes Poppy tick. While it’s proceeded by 13 songs that ask questions of mortality, self-image, and creation, "X" is a primal force that offers salvation while asking for blood. It’s aforementioned blend of highly charged guitars and whimsical choirs battle not only for control of the listener’s emotion, but also their allegiance to the light or dark, however futile. If a song like "Time Is Up" spends 30 seconds exploring the naivety and loneliness of the brand new world, "X" sheds it in favour of command and conquer; this is Queen Poppy telling us to bow down.

"X" begins not with this suddenly asserted dominance, but with a flirtation as Poppy coos over heavy, rushed riffs. This isn’t the mistress of darkness who will beg for blood, but an innocent beauty who’s walked in on band practice with a shit-eating grin. A false sense of security, created by someone who has been debating creation itself, is a constant part of what makes "X" special: Poppy, as the album’s protagonist and machine, has learnt too much for the good of humanity. With every year continuing the pratfalls and failures of the human race, with every casualty and error of the past we repeat, we continue to disable our future and enable opportunities for further disgrace. Whether or not you consider "X" a cautionary tale is simply a matter of opinion. For Poppy, it is no less then absolution.

I like to think of it as wishful thinking. Much the same as vapid tweets and horses beaten red, the more hopeful verses echo sentiments of what we all think at one point in time: “I wanna love everyone/Empty every bullet out of every gun...” In stark contrast to the screamed chorus and terrifying back vocals echoing Poppy’s sly, “You can get down on your knees if you're naughty,” it’s a reprieve of sorts that does wonders for both pulling you from the murk and smacking you over the head when it seemingly comes out of nowhere at first. It’s fantastically hypnotic, pulling you through the seduction of the post-chorus and back into the vicious music. It’s like being repeatedly drowned in chocolate syrup (yes, that’s a Hitchcock reference, you work it out).

While "X" is a simple song, it never discounts itself, building on the verse-chorus structure to twist the way each round makes the listener feel. In the video that accompanies it, the much brighter scenes of Poppy in cult formation are juxtaposed in the second verse by her shocked expression, just as the guitars chime back in to steal her away and saturate her with blood again. The post-chorus, mentioned earlier with the dark and booming bass line, is divulged by images of an almost alien Poppy who lulls you into paralyzed euphoria (punctuated by diamond-encrusted Slipknot impersonators) before releasing you over searing guitar riffs that flash by like monsters. Just like the unearthly weaving of good and bad that is "X" itself, the music video is a hysterical mashup of grace and gore. When it reaches its final frames, as the song finds focus and walks the middle ground, the Carrie-inspired direction reverts to that prom queen presentation: Poppy singing her hopes the way a Miss Universe model would, and the band picking up speed to an almost celebratory pace. Everything suddenly fits, and despite the overbearing chaos, Poppy tries to carry her mission out on a high note. What is most remarkable, I guess, is how the imagery in this scene compliments the artist’s lyrical vision. Where a lot of music videos would simply place a singer in a moment and frame the action around a song that most likely has no relation to that scene, "X" uses the light and dark moments throughout to show how, in the end, everything finds a balance. Not only is it a video with purpose, but it’s one with the reason to back it all the way up, and it serves its message dutifully: Order and chaos, whichever way you spin it.

Much like "Computer Boy" was the very obvious heart of Poppy.Computer, "X" gives clarity to an album that is ambitious in its search for humanity, and distills what it finds into raw emotion. Not only is it a terrifying show of how deeply ignorant we have all become, and how primal we can be when nothing else seems visible, but it brings both sides of human instinct together in order to show how we can better ourselves. Who knows, if you try hard enough then “Maybe you can save the world, for every boy and every girl...”

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