Wiki
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Release Date
27 October 2023
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Length
11 tracks
Zig is the fifth studio album by American singer-songwriter and YouTube personality Poppy. It was released in October 27th, 2023. The album has been defined as post-genre and features the singles Church Outfit and Knockoff. The lead single, Church Outfit, was released April 4, 2023. The second single, Knockoff was released on July 19, 2023. The third single, Motorbike was released on September 12, 2023. The fourth single Hard was released on October 20,2023. The Fifth single, Flicker was released on December 1, 2023. And the album it is a reflection of an artist who has been in the public eye since her late teens coming into her own in her late 20’s as a woman who knows what she wants and who she is.
Zig is at once tender and tough, filled with bold, electronic beats, deep metal rock riffs reminiscent of early 90s industrial. Recorded with producer Ali Payami, and her long term collaborative partner Simon Wilcox the three of them made an album that is both from the heart and creatively significant.
Finding inspiration for the album from music that has resonated with her since a child – Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, Blondie, Gary Numan, and Bowie, as well as semi-anonymous electro-pioneer Burial and English DJ Blawan, creating the album was a tight process representative of a singular chapter. “I learned a lot about myself ,” she says, “and I feel like that is represented. Now I’ve been with the music for an amount of time, when I listen back I can have a little more clarity than I had in the moment.”
Lyrically she speaks of emotions without varnish. In Flicker, she sings “never put your grimy hands on my steering wheel… I’ll be the drive in my own my life.” Electro drumrolls paired with Mirwais-era Madonna-esque keys give the song a dark ballad feel. “The song was about feeling uncomfortable with love relationships and trying to understand why that was,” she tells, “and orchestrating in my mind the end before it happens.” Writing the song helped her get that feeling under control, “It’s a reminder to myself to live in the moment and not expect much from the future or a “forever”.
“There is a freedom and aggression in singing that I lean into more so - there’s a now-ness you have to be present - it’s taught me a lot about myself and performing; you can’t be anywhere else mentally.”
“Making ZIG – we made well over 40 songs, and I selected the ones I kept coming back to. Ali is so inspiring and so quick, and Simon and I turn our phone calls into songs. We would finish one, listen back and say “lets make another”. Eventually whittling the album down to just 11 tracks, she worked between her four different journals (organised for different ideas) but just as often started with a riff or chord progression – she plays both guitar and bass. “I’ll come in with a skeleton and we piece it together. I feel the need to make sense of my own code, in an effort to understand myself.”
The final track on the album is Prove It, which sees her vocals flicker from unfettered and vulnerable to double speed, fuzzed-up, distorted screaming. “I am competing with myself. I believe that’s fine.”
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