Here are two facts about myself: I'm female and I'm a massive fan of metal music. Once upon a time that would have openly been considered a paradox, but fortunately we've moved on somewhat. Not enough, but progress has been made; in 2020 being a girl and into this kind of music really isn't noteworthy. There are many women now performing in major metal bands in a variety of roles and sub-genres and more women are attending metal gigs (or we would be if not for that little bastard known as Covid-19). There are also some female musicians who have become notable for starting their careers in other genres before making the jump to metal. The 2010s saw Amalie Bruun go from various indie pop outfits to atmospheric black metal as Myrkur. Chelsea Wolfe released a doom metal album and started the sludge metal/noise rock act Mrs Piss. And Rose Kemp went from psychedelic/folk music to doom metal.
Enter Poppy.
What can we say about Poppy? Well, she's followed a similar route having made a name performing electro-pop styles, but for her third studio album I Disagree has made the jump to alternative metal. That's where the similarities in these stories end. You see, Poppy's I Disagree doesn't necessarily sound like the work of an artist who decided to embrace a love of metal the way someone like Myrkur did. Instead it sounds like the work of a hipster pop artist who decided to add some heavy guitars to her sound for the purpose being ironic without caring an iota about how the result may be perceived as a metal album. And that result is what may just be the most offensive metal album to female metalheads ever created and the stupid thing is if my suspicions are right about what Poppy was actually going for with I Disagree then she probably will never have a clue about why that is.
Let's add some context, the rarely spoken about female experience of being a metalhead. Like in many walks of life, women into metal have had to put up with a lot of unacceptable crap from men who half the time probably don't even realise they're doing it. Actually not just men, but other women who don't like metal as well can actually be just as bad or at least bloody judgemental toward a woman who listens to metal. As a female headbanger I have often found myself on the receiving end of the assumption that when I speak about metal that I don't know what I'm talking about, never mind that my Dad practically raised me on a diet of classic 70s and 80s metal and hard rock bands. There was even a meme posted here on Metal Music Archives once with the words 'When a girl says she likes heavy music' picturing Slayer as 'what you hope for' and Nickelback as 'what she means'.
And that's just the start of the shit we have to deal with, especially in the online context which for many metalheads regardless of gender is often the only place we get to actually discuss the music we love with like-minded people. Online I have been accused more than once of not being a girl, but a G.I.R.L. which you internet savvy folks will know stands for Guy in Real Life. One guy even went so far that in my early days on YouTube took it upon himself to actually make a video about me and how I was a 'sock account'. This was after I wouldn't agree with his opinion on something so trivial I no longer even remember what it was.
Does anyone realise just how fucking offensive that is? And this is not to mention the situation at gigs. It was more of a problem a few years ago, but still, I've had to put up with people assuming I'm just someone's girlfriend dragged along against her will or that I'm just there to be provocative to guys. In fact I was even sexually assaulted at a gig once by some drunk arsehole which ultimately resulted in me getting kicked out by a bouncer after I defended myself.
What does this have to do with Poppy and her first (and please God let it be her only) metal album I Disagree? Because this kind of thing is how historically women in and into metal have been perceived and treated and I Disagree sets all kinds of wrong impression. Even before we hear a single note of music we have that atrocious cover where it looks like Poppy got done up in corpse paint (complete with a spiked collar), but then you'll notice it's actually just a bad Photoshop job hiding that she really doesn't look 'metal' at all. And that's a problem in that looking metal really doesn't matter to actual metalheads. Akercocke wore tweed suits for crying out loud. Image is the selling point of the pop album. But they say a picture is worth a thousand words and true to form the cover art actually gives a glimpse at the kind of music that will be found within. Not black metal, but basically what Poppy must have been doing before dressed up as metal, just like she is on the cover. That's not a very good image to set for women in metal. It reaffirms the kind of crap people expect of a girl when she says she likes metal.
Everything about the album screams wrong when trying to listen to it as a metal album. The really heavy guitars in the opener Concrete are nice, but everything else about that song made me just switch the album off in disgust on my first attempt to listen to it, with Poppy mixing those heavy riffs with sunshine pop vocals. You may as well just listen to an actual novelty act like Babymetal if you want your metal to sound cute. Personally it makes me want to go barf up my lunch.
And it really doesn't get any better across its ten songs, if anything it instead gets worse, such as at any point that Poppy abandons her pop singing for rapping, where she manages to sound like a petulant child about to throw a major tantrum rather than anything remotely close to convincing. The more bearable parts are where she drops all the pretences of being a metal album and the heavy guitars are removed, but that just leaves us with with various elements pop, electro, dance and hip-hop, which after you scratch its surface is what you're left with across the whole release. There's precious little actual metal that's anything more than vapid and generic stuff playing a supporting role in her sound. Of course metal does mix well with other genres and it's the other elements that often raise an otherwise standard sounding release up, but that's not the case here. Maybe it works form the point of view of any of the other genres she has in the mix, I won't speak for that as that is not music I care for, but as a metal album I Disagree may just be the worst thing I've ever heard.
Poppy represents a popular artist who genuinely could have introduced metal to people who wouldn't have given it the time of day before this for no other reason than its metal and as the narrow minded have taken time out of their busy days to remind me before, metal is 'evil, unfeminine and just a load of noise'. The majority of people hearing her go metal will be in this group (the rest will be existing metalheads like me who got curious without thinking about what killed the cat). This is not a good album to give newcomers an impression of what metal sounds like. It is not even a good album to get an impression of what alternative/nu metal sounds like because frankly it makes me want to shout for the dreaded Limp Bizkit to come back because all is forgiven.
On an earlier album Poppy posed the question Am I a Girl? Well Poppy I don't know what you decided, but you look like a girl and sound like a girl, and you sure as hell made a pretty awful album to judge women in metal by with this piece of work. We're in an age where female musicians in metal are becoming more plentiful and recognised for their work, not just as eye candy. I Disagree is far from representative of female achievement in the genre and yet this will likely be the most heard album from a female solo artist in metal in 2020. Maybe even the most heard metal album. And that sucks for the genre as a whole, not just the women who are embarrassed by this perversion of an album (because I sure as hell hope I'm not the only one).
Now that I've got off my chest how it makes me feel, I'm going to do my damnedest to pretend this album doesn't exist.