Idles and Danny Brown – Pop Pop Pop Review

Idles made an active move away from anger on their latest release. Where it may have taken the punk wind from their sails, they replaced it with candour and honesty. Love is the thing was their route to this new sound, and Pop Pop Pop provides an example as to why it may work. Tangk certainly has its moments, those cries and wails on Roy or the LCD Soundsystem-featuring Dancer are a tremendous joy and an evolution of their sound. Pop Pop Pop feels relatively forgettable, one of those songs which provides some quick and easy jolt at the time of release, and a little more afterwards. Adding Danny Brown to the mix is quite the choice. A sensational performer, but what can he add to Pop Pop Pop? Idles may have heard the beat of their Tangk single and believed, wholeheartedly, Brown could add a fresh lyrical charm to it.  

They were not wrong to think that, but in practice, it becomes an underwhelming offering. On paper, it sounds fantastic. Brown adapting the words and work of Idles, the huge splashes they made when maintaining love as a response to hardship. It is a welcome change of pace to their fundamental sound, to the raging post-punk which still rightly dominates their live shows. Frontman Joe Talbot and Brown make for a solid back-and-forth, it is just a shame the latter has very little to do. An opening verse and it fades into a drone rock-like remix of Pop Pop Pop. There is a soft layer of experimentation in Pop Pop Pop which keeps it alive. Brown is a jolt of fresh energy, a new punch of overwhelming skill. But in real-time, and you can hear the moment it happens, the song begins to slow and shudder. Those jittery moments are a result of mixing which has either lost interest in the moment or has failed to find it.  

Opt for the latter as an explanation, then. Pop Pop Pop begins to sound as though a record player needle is losing its grip. Wobbly and underwhelming instrumental tones and the industrial sound, the menace it provides, do not quite land. A flatlining shame which wastes the potential Brown gives the song, though to be fair it is not as though he has much to do on it. Compare it with the original and even then, the song itself is riddled with problems. Likely the weakest song to come from Tangk, though that was the case for most of the singles in the lead up to their 2024 effort. What it keeps hold of is the menace Idles were trying to shake from Tangk.  

Pop Pop Pop is a relic uncovered amid a clearout. A song which has ties to the old period, the less-than-ideal moments in their album cycle. Idles has moved along from the harsher sound but they wanted one last pop at it, it would seem. Brown adds a little bit of lightning to this remix though his one verse appearance is not enough to overwhelm the song with any new feeling or thought. What it maintains is the discomfort, the grinding instrumentals are still a treat, just a little lost and without reason. Compare it with the rest of Tangk and it sticks out like a sore thumb. Isolate it, and it does not shine. Pop Pop Pop is a strange blurring of past and future for Idles, with those moments of pushing forward far outweighing and exceeding anything the band can do with this single, remix or otherwise.