If Poppy has to explain herself, she’ll do it on her own pastel-punk terms. For perhaps the first time ever, the pop starlet has gifted listeners with a tidy summary of her career, packaged as a single and self-directed music video called “Flux.” The new song and visual arrived today (July 30) with news of her upcoming fourth album — also titled Flux — which drops September 24 via Sumerian Records.
The CliffsNotes-sized glimpse at her ineffable catalog explains multitudes with few words, as Poppy meanders through a treacherous bubblegum dreamscape. Which is to say, it’s incredibly on-brand.
“No attention span is shorter / Than mine or yours” reaches back to the social commentary of her first album, Poppy.Computer; “My body is fluid” nods to talk of gender identity in 2018’s Am I A Girl?; and, of course, her recurring theme of kawai death pop threads “Flux” with her last LP, I Disagree.
“Flux” even bridges the gap between now and her work from a few months ago; the lines “Chewed up and used its / Cut into pieces to feed them all” recalls the lyrics of “Eat,” the lead single from her EP of the same name, released this summer as the soundtrack for WWE’s The Next Generation (NXT).
Coming from anyone else, the message here would be more straightforward. It’s common (albeit overlooked) knowledge that women’s bodies are seen as consumable, thus forced to twist, shrink, and shape-shift when trends flip-flop at the whims of social media algorithms. Yet when Poppy acknowledges this gnarly truth, she also overpowers it. She beats the trends to the punch every time she modifies herself by her own accord.
The rest of the world remains in “flux” — she’s just evolving. Tune in below, and pre-order Flux here.
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