i had to sleep.

those thoughts were rambly and unorganized. so, let me summarize.

poppy is not a metal singer, but she has appropriated the aesthetic of metal in a very shallow and surface manner. i initially reacted by comparing her to marilyn manson, but manson himself was essentially just 80s hair metal, and this is an idea that is maybe better rooted in something like van halen. her music is essentially a series of strung together cliches, which the kids today call "memes", but which music critics still can't like, even if it's currently hip and trendy to be unoriginal.

i have a longstanding aversion to the aesthetic she is shallowly appropriating, stemming from my upbringing in 90s anti-rock iconoclasm. my initial reaction was exceedingly negative, as would be expected from anybody coming from that background.

her music has a certain level of elaborateness to it, though, and i can't help but be drawn to the complexity underlying it, and sort of want to find some underlying value to it. i can often sort through a bad surface image to try to get through to something more worthwhile underneath. however, i find the surface heavy metal aesthetic to be singularly too unappealing to be able to do this in any substantive way, and i'm not convinced that there's actually much there, anyways.

i've mentioned that i'm at least pleasantly surprised by the more serious nature of the younger generation of pop musicians, and this might fall into that category, eventually.

but, my opinion is that this walk down the road of heavy metal imagery is a decidedly wrong turn, and if that poppy is going to write substantive pop music in the future then she'll have to drop the 80s metal cliches, which are just simply artistically irredeemable.