Video: Mediocre – “Pop Song Baby”

Directed by Naomi Ash and Keely Martin. From the To Know You’re Screwed EP, out April 7 on Dangerbird.

Remember Mediocre’s “Mattress Bitch” from a couple years ago? We featured it right after I got my first covid booster, back when we assumed by now we’d all be safer and closer to normal. Within a month the Omicron variant would obliterate our expectations.

But here we are, plodding along. Doing the best we can.

And Mediocre isn’t taking any of your shit. They know the deal.

You wanna put me in to even out the score
And give yourself a hand for opening the door.

You love to see it when somebody bites the hand that feeds them!

Thanks for your soul, it’s a sold out show
Go write another angry pop song darlin’.

Yes please. Angry pop songs are the best pop songs, and I think Piper Torrison and Keely Martin agree. That’s why they wrote another one!

The band says, “We wanted to write a song that our teenage selves would blast in our bedrooms. As femme musicians growing up in a predominantly male music scene, we pulled from our frustrations of being underestimated and pigeon-holed into certain archetypes. This song and video explores those pressures.”

I appreciate that “Pop Song Baby” explores those pressures without altogether rejecting them. It’s a complicated situation and Mediocre is navigating it beautifully.

Video: Mediocre – “To Know You’re Screwed is to Know a Lot”

Directed by Keely Martin and Piper Torrison. From the To Know You’re Screwed EP, out April 7 on Dangerbird.