Earlier today, I made a dig at Sony for waiting until now to send 2020 year-in-review stats to PS4 and PS5 players. And, uh, I realized I’ve had this piece about my favorite album of last year in my drafts for about a month (and before that, my notes app since, like, March), so I figured I should probably finish it.
One of the biggest disappointments for me during 2020 (beyond, you know, not seeing my family and elected leaders failing to act appropriately on the advice of scientists so millions of people would still be alive and we wouldn’t be in this fuckhole of a pandemic a year later) is missing out on a couple of concerts I really wanted to go to. That’s a first-world problem, I know, but bear with me. I was bummed that the Jimmy Eat World show was delayed then canceled — I’ve seen them before, but only at festivals. I was also looking forward to seeing Deftones for the first time. I’ve liked that band since forever, but truth be told, I was more excited about catching one of their opening acts, a YouTube performance artist-turned-thrilling pop-metal star.
If you’re at all familiar with Poppy (yes, That Poppy) and haven’t kept up to date with her output over the last couple of years, you might be in for a surprise. She made her name as an eerie ASMR parody of a pop star while carving out a career as one. Since late 2018, her music’s veered into much heavier territory, starting with “X” from Am I A Girl? and the fantastic “Scary Mask” from the EP Choke. Her latest album, I Disagree, builds on those experiments with a full-length collection of exciting, genre-defying music. There shouldn’t be any world in which this mishmash works, and there are points where Poppy and her collaborators don’t quite stick the landing, but I Disagree is by some distance my favorite album of last year.
Poppy wears many hats: YouTube star, performance artist, musician, fashion model, and graphic novel author, to name a few. I Disagree is similarly eclectic. Opener “Concrete” is a patchwork of half-a-dozen genres and a thousand ideas, from its opening siren, massive riffs and Beach Boys-esque verse to a Queen-style breakdown and a bubblegum pop outro. Good luck getting that ending out of your head for a while.
The title track, with its enormous, ultra-catchy chorus, is my most-listened-to song of 2020 for good reason. The opening refrain hit a sweet spot — it’s in Japanese and, when I first heard it, we were in the midst of planning a trip to Japan (tl;dr we left for a month-long trip in mid-February. It was incredible. We cut the vacation short by a couple of days because of the world falling apart. I Disagree was my soundtrack for those weeks). “I Disagree” is Poppy’s middle finger to the music industry, but it strikes a nihilist note that sums up 2020 to a T.
How much you read into I Disagree might be based on your familiarity with the performer. If you have a spare 12 minutes, this Nicki Swift video covers the broad strokes of her past, including her beef with Grimes and an acrimonious split from her closest creative partner Titanic Sinclair at the end of 2019.
Knowing a bit about Poppy’s past brings some more perspective to some of these songs, such as “Anything Like Me.” Some fans believe it’s about her dispute with Mars Algo, a performer who claimed in a lawsuit that Poppy copied her. I think it’s a cool song that blends dream pop, Billie Eilish beats and Beautiful People-era Marilyn Manson (side note: fuck that guy).
Along with some unexpected references (I’m sure there’s a nod to Mad Capsule Markets in there), the album hits some tremendous highs. Closer “Don't Go Outside” (solid advice) appropriately wraps things up with a mashup of motifs from throughout the record, bringing them all together in a way that, like most of I Disagree, probably shouldn’t work, but does so beautifully.
It’s not a perfect record, though. The cacophonous “BLOODMONEY” is a bit of a misfire. But hey, it’s cool that it earned Poppy a Grammy nomination, the first for a female solo artist in the Best Metal Performance category.
I’m excited for what’s next for Poppy. She’s said her next album will have “a completely different sonic vibe" to I Disagree. Whatever she’s cooking up, I can’t wait to hear it.