February 12, 2025

Poppy is one of the most enigmatic artists in the realm of modern music. Rather than favoring a singular unique style, she chooses instead a cycle of style reinvention. Of course, it could be argued that many artists do this – they’ll change up their musical styles a bit or try a more experimental album. But if you are not a Poppy listener, then I challenge you to queue up a few of her songs from different albums and shuffle them, and then consider the results. You’ll hear upbeat, ASMR-esque pop, intense mixes of industrial rock and metal, more traditional alternative tracks, and all sorts of sounds in between. If you were to categorize Poppy’s sound under one label, it would most likely be an unusual description for musical genres.

The difference between Poppy’s reinventions and those of more traditional artists is that Poppy’s are drastic, uncanny, and all-encompassing. Poppy from last year is not the same Poppy as the one that started releasing projects, and both are far different from the Poppy of today. This may be polarizing, even for some fans, but Poppy (as a character and musical brand) is a completely entrancing art project.

I put those distinctions there because Poppy is more than just a musical artist. Her character, brand, and content is all part of a larger art project that has been going on for years. While I haven’t been a fan of Poppy since the beginning, the content that actually made me aware of her and made me a fan initially wasn’t her music. Starting around 10 years ago, Poppy began releasing strange videos to YouTube and other platforms. These videos were all ARG-adjacent (ARG stands for Alternate Reality Game), and featured her in strange situations, with other strange characters, and tons of other bizarre sights.

This kind of content has been largely absent from the project for a long time. But just last week, it made its glorious return.

Improbably Poppy‘s first episode, “Taking Risks,” feels like a callback to her old videos and style with updates to root her in a new kind of light. There are NSFW jokes, cute puppets, off-set skits, and music. This video is actually set to be the first in a series streaming on Veeps. Now, I had never heard of Veeps before this released, but this is basically the best advertisement there could have been. I’m very excited to see where this leads, especially in tandem with new music and her current tour.

But this isn’t the only piece of Poppy news out there right now. She also recently went on Triple J and performed an incredible cover of Sabrina Carpenter’s “Taste.” To put my thoughts succinctly, it’s an amazing cover.

Poppy’s story will continue to unfold, and I’m very excited to see where she goes next. Every new style or project she tackles is entertaining and unique, and I’m very excited to follow her next steps.