Voicemail

"Voicemail" is a song by Poppy. It served as the lead single from her second extended play Choke and is the second track on the EP. The music video was released on January 31st, 2019, while the song was officially released to streaming services on February 7th, 2019. The music video currently has over 3 million views on YouTube.

Background
Poppy revealed the song title in an interview with Forbes. Though it was originally slated to be a standalone single, it became part of Choke after she made enough music for a full EP.

Theme
Poppy stated in an interview with Interview Magazine that she does not let people leave voicemails on her phone, and that her "mailbox is always full so people can't leave messages". She also revealed that her and Titanic Sinclair's philosophy for the song was to "write a song without chords in it", and that Gary Numan served as an inspiration for the song and music video.

In an interview with Gigwise on the full Choke EP, Poppy explained that the song was also inspired by her fans. Shortly before the song's release, she tweeted a phone number that fans could leave a voicemail at. She said that the song was inspired by "a couple of very interesting messages" that fans had left on the number's voicemail, and that she wishes to make "some sort of sonic collage" with the messages in the future.

Promotional Images
Poppy promoted the song by posting photos from the scene of the music video before and after its release.

Trivia

 * This is the fourth Poppy song to feature bilingual lyrics, with the second verse incorporating Japanese. "Moshi Moshi", "I Disagree", "Eat" and "Say Cheese" also incorporate Japanese, while "Hard Feelings" and "Aristocrat" incorporate French.
 * The Japanese lyrics in the second verse, "kimi hazukashii / te ni imashou", translate to "you are embarrassing / let's go".
 * In an interview with Interview Magazine, Poppy said that the music video for "Voicemail" is a "continuation" of the "X" music video.
 * The mixing of the single version is considerably different from the music video version; the song begins with a fade-in, the vocals have more reverb, and the synths are lowered in volume.
 * The lyric "Poppy is your mommy" would later be referenced in Poppy's video "Your Mommy", in which she labels her viewers as her "children" and herself as their "mommy".
 * This is the shortest song on Choke, being 2:42 long.