Bubblebath

BubblebathExtended play by Poppy
General information
Featured Artist(s)	N/A
Released	February 12th, 2016 (release) June 10th, 2016 (re-release with different version of "Money" and alternate mix of "Lowlife")
Genre	Pop • dance-pop • reggae
Length	13:08 (first version) 12:46 (re-release)
Label	Island Records / Geffen Records
Producer(s)	Sir Nolan Tim Pagnotta Tommy English Tyler Glenn
Poppy chronology
Current	Bubblebath
Next	3:36 (Music to Sleep To)

Bubblebath is the debut extended play (EP) by Poppy, released under the name That Poppy. The EP was released on February 12^th, 2016 to all streaming platforms.

Background and Conception

Scrapped first version (2012-2013)

Poppy had stated several times in 2012 and 2013 that she was on the process of making an EP with exclusively original songs instead of covers, as covers were the kind of songs she most released during that time, the EP was being produced by herself along with the band HeyHiHello.^{[citation needed]} By the time of the recording it she had no record label.

Any information about the EP recorded since 2012 until mid-2013 is unknown, however it appears to be that most of the project was scrapped when she moved to Los Angeles in late 2013 and deleted most of the content from her SoundCloud and YouTube accounts in mid-2013, she later signed with Island Records in January 2014.

Teasing of studio album and song recordings (2013-2015)

By December 19^th, 2013 the song "American Kids" started its production as it was teased by Tyler Glenn, one of the producers of the song, and the song continued its production in 2014 and likely through 2015. The song "Lowlife" also started its production in 2014, by that same time the producer Titanic Sinclair met Poppy through the demo of that song and through other unknown demo songs that were produced on that same time. On November 2014 Poppy started her YouTube project, along with Titanic Sinclair as the director of the videos, which consisted on the character Poppy making videos on YouTube and trough the more than 300 video series manipulated by an unknown group proclaimed as They as she also meets other characters, the YouTube videos are mostly criticizing popular culture. This format of videos was an idea made by Sinclair used a project he already worked on with American singer Mars Argo.

The song "Everybody Wants to Be Poppy" started its production likely sometime in 2014 and was released in June 23^rd, 2015 alongside a self titled 3-episode webseries in that same month as form of promotion for the song, however the song was not part of the project. Poppy released 4 covers of songs through mid-2014 and early 2015, them being "Hurtin' Kind", "Santa Baby", "My Kind of Woman" and "Stolen Dance", none of these covers were part of the project neither. The same day "Everybody Wants to Be Poppy" was released, an interview for Indie Rocks Mexico was released in which she comments that she will stop releasing covers since it's not "in her plan" as she teased that a new song was going to be released on July alongside a music video.

It is assumed that it was originally planned to be an album, delayed until early 2016, as Poppy teased in the first "Charlotte Interviews Poppy" and in the third "Charlotte Interviews Poppy" video.

A song titled "New York" was revealed that was on recording process on July 11^th, 2015, as shown in an Instagram post made by Poppy into 360 Magazine's Instagram account as a promotional mechanism for the song. The song "Lowlife" would be announced officially on July 14^th, 2015 and its music video was teased with three now-privated teasers uploaded to her YouTube channel since the announcement date until the release date of July 24^th, 2015 alongside a music video, this song ended up being the lead single to the EP. Sometime after August 2015, Poppy would tease music in her Tumblr account with a picture of Bubble tape Hubba Bubba with the caption "New 🎶 on the way 💗"; that being one of her first posts on her Tumblr account after deleting all the posts of it.

A minute and half of the instrumental of the song "New York" was teased on a now-privated video titled "Poppy in NYC - October 2015" uploaded on November 9^th, 2015 to Poppy's YouTube channel which simply contained various short clips of Poppy in New York City.^{[citation needed]} This song was first performed at Corona Capital Festival on November 22^nd, 2015 and later two times at the Dumblonde Tour, where she was being an opener. After this, the song was not included in the project and never being officially released, it likely was supposed to be included in the project but didn't make the final cut.

Tease and release (2016)

On January 14^th, 2016 at Kyxy 96.5, Poppy performed the then-unreleased song "Altar", as a way to serve promotion upon the release of it. Seemingly on January 25^th, 2016 the photoshoot for the EP took place. On January 27^th, 2016, a picture from the same photoshoot was posted to Poppy's social media with the caption "#Bubblebath #thatpoppy 🛀🏼🎀" as the picture showed Poppy with only a necklace cover in silver glitter. On January 29^th, 2016, a third picture from the photoshoot was posted but this time it showed Poppy with a pink dress and with a different background but same makeup as this one was posted with "🎀" as the caption.

The EP's official artwork, and release date were announced on February 2^nd, 2016. As promotion for the EP, two promotional videos were done, both are just fabric letters spelling "That Poppy Bubblebath" while being inside of a bath with bath bombs. The first video was released on February 3^rd with a 9-second snippet of the song "Money" and the second video was released on February 8^th with other 9-second snippet but this time of the previously performed song "Altar". On February 7^th, 2016, a fourth picture from the photoshoot was released, accompained with the caption "🎀🛀🏼🎀" that makes clear allusion to Bubblebath.

To promote the release of the EP, Poppy made various "takeovers" at companies' social media: On February 9^th, she took over Island Records' Instagram, Twitter and Snpachat accounts, on February 10^th she took over Teen Vogue's Snapchat account, on February 11^th she took over J14 Magazine's Snapchat account and lastly, on February 12^th she took over Pop Star Magazine's Snapchat account. On the February 10^th takeover at Teen Vogue's Snapchat account, it was revealed that "Lowlife" was going to be part of the EP, by sharing a snippet of the song being played on a laptop with the cover of the EP. A day before the EP was released, on February 11^th, 2016, the EP premiered on the website Popular TV, by that revealing the song never mentioned or teased before by Poppy herself titled "American Kids" was going to be part of the EP. The same day, a picture of Poppy with the same radio used at the beginning of the music video "Lowlife" with the caption "Hello my my #bubblebathEP is almost here! 💅🏻 2.12.16✨🎶🛀🏼". The day the EP was released, a picture of the official cover of the EP including promotional text was released to Poppy's social media.

On February 15^th, 2016, 3 days after the EP's release date, audio videos for all the songs, except "Lowlife", were uploaded to Poppy's VEVO channel.^{[citation needed]} On March 12^th, 2016, Poppy performed the song "New York" live for the last known time at a livestream at Periscope.

Tour, Side B and new version of the EP

On May 7^th, 2016, a now-unavailable video titled "Bubblebath Tour" was uploaded to Poppy's YouTube channel, in the video Poppy warned the listeners that she would be going on tour and told them to check her tour dates. Two days later, the tour would start and consisted of a total of 5 dates. On May 17^th, 2016 one date for the tour was cancelled, other was rescheduled and a new one was added; this same day without prior announcement, the song "Chewing Gum" was released to Poppy's SoundCloud account, but taken down in aproximately 30 minutes from the account. It was later specified more about the song a year later. It's speculated that the reason of this song being released is that Poppy wanted to release this song was due to "apologize" to her fans in a way for the date changes of the Bubblebath Tour, as she has done the same movement in 2018 when dates for the Am I a Girl? Tour were rescheduled and due to this the song "Immature Couture" was released first to Poppy's SoundCloud account and later to all streaming platforms.

Without prior announcement nor further promotion, on June 10^th, 2016, a new version of the EP was released to all streaming platforms replacing the former one, this new version included a new version of the song "Money" and an alternate mix of "Lowlife" which had the instrumental less saturated and slight differences. The new version of "Money" had the instrumental break cut off and the line "if money can't buy happiness" was re-recorded since she appeared to pronounce "happiness" as "a penis", to evade the confusion, upon the song's release as a single, the line was re-recorded to make more emphasis in the H. Because of this change, the audio video of the first version of the song was made unlisted.^{[citation needed]}

It was never explained on what happened to "Chewing Gum" until July 25^th, 2017, when Poppy herself edited the description of the song's page made on lyrics and song's information specialized website Genius, in which she revealed for the first time that the song was supposed to be part of the scrapped side B of the Bubblebath EP. She would later talk more in detail about this scrapped side B in April 1^st, 2020 on a Q&A on a Discord server group chat, in there she explained that she herself uploaded the song to her SoundCloud account, however her label at the time, Island Records, took it down but the reasons were unspecified in detail by Poppy, and when an user asked her why did they took it down she said that the label "owned" her and that they just took advantage of her since she signed them while being young and naive.^{[citation needed]}

Inconvenients (2018-2024)

Sometime in April 2018, the music video for "Money" was taken down from YouTube because of a copyright infringement made by Hali Race. It is speculated by fans that the video was taken down because of a drawing used without permission. Hali Race seems to be the owner of the drawing, this exact drawing was an eye-ball gif used along with several other kawaii-like drawings in the video, however it appears to be that the owner didn't give permission for that exact drawing to appear on Poppy's video. This incident appears to be a mistake made by Titanic Sinclair, since he recorded, directed and edited the video, and this could've been talked with the drawing's owner but it appears to be that they couldn't get to an agreement and the music video is still not available to this date.

Sometime in early July 2018, the EP was removed from Poppy's artist page on streaming services and re-added under a separate "That Poppy" artist page. This would also happen with the "Lowlife" Slushii remix sometime later in 2018 and to the single version of "I'm Poppy" on 2022. However, on April 9^th, 2024 this action was reversed and both the EP and the two singles were re-added to Poppy's artist page instead of the "That Poppy" artist page and the "That Poppy" artist page would be deleted from all streaming platforms. On November 13^th, 2025, this action was reversed again exclusively for the EP and for the remix of "Lowlife" made by Slushii.

On July 23^rd, 2021 the unlisted audio videos for "Money" and for the Travis Mills remix of "Lowlife" were made private by YouTube istelf due to a changing policy which made all of the videos which were unlisted and uploaded before the year 2017 to be made private.

Theme

Lyrics

Bubblebath (excluding "Lowlife" and "Altar") tells the story of Poppy becoming famous at a young age, "selling her soul" to the media at 15 and proceeding her career, never to see her family again and completely erasing her past as also being homeless.

The lyrics mention how Poppy's life has been since she started to live on her own, as she lived without a home and struggled to live along with people (as mentioned in "Money" and "American Kids") as well as her desires or fantasies of interrupting another person's bad relationship with someone who doesn't deserves them (as mentioned in "Altar") and also talking about a bad side of her life where she only has got one thing that matters (as mentioned on "Lowlife").

Sound

On an interview with iHeartRadio at 102.7 Kiis-Fm made sometime in January 2016 but released two days after the EPs release in February, Poppy mentioned that the EP's sound was a mix of all her favourite artists, including Elvis Presley and Cyndi Lauper, also mentioning that the lyrics of the songs in the EP were co-written by her because she wanted the lyrics to "come from her" and also coming from her own personal experiences.

Title

When Poppy was asked what was the meaning behind the title of the EP, Bubblebath, on her video "Ask Poppy a Question", uploaded on March 23^rd, 2016, she answered:

"Poppy thinks the world is very dirty and could benefit from a bubblebath. That is why she named her debut EP Bubblebath"

This was the only time she would speak about the title of the EP. She's showcased speaking in third sense as a part of her Poppy character.

Bubblebath Tour

Main article: Bubblebath Tour

A tour to promote the Bubblebath EP took place in North America between May 7^th, 2016 and July 30^th, 2016.

Reception

The debut EP was exceptionally well-received across media. "Lowlife" especially received critical acclaim, award nominations and radio airtime, also receiving an exclusive version for Radio Disney which was premiered on March 7^th, 2016 and included minimal lyrics change along with being a clean version. "Money" also received praise upon the release of its music video, and was also featured in a TV show as well as a video game. Internet media articles also praised the execution of the colorful music videos accompanying the tracks. While "Altar" and "American Kids" were typically overshadowed by the previous two tracks, Tyler Peterson of UQMUSIC described the whole EP as a "small collection of millennial masterpieces".

Poppy parted with Island Records on September 2016, due to mistreatments from part of the label to Poppy.

Tracklist

No.	Title	Artist	Writer(s)	Producer(s)	Length
1.	"Lowlife" 🅴	That Poppy	That Poppy, Sir Nolan, Simon Wilcox	Sir Nolan	3:25
2.	"Money"	That Poppy	That Poppy, Wilcox, Tommy English, Titanic Sinclair	English	3:10
3.	"Altar"	That Poppy	That Poppy, Wilcox, Sir Nolan, Bryce Vine, Tom Peyton	Sir Nolan	2:40
4.	"American Kids" 🅴	That Poppy	That Poppy, Sinclair, Sir Nolan, Tim Pagnotta, Tyler Glenn	Pagnotta, Glenn	3:31

Singles

"Lowlife" was released to digital retailers through Island Records and Geffen Records along with its music video on July 24^th, 2015, and served as the first single to the EP. Poppy co-wrote the song with Sir Nolan and Simon Wilcox, and it was produced by Sir Nolan.

"Money" was released to digital retailers through Island Records and Geffen Records along with its music video on July 29^th, 2016, and served as a promotional single to the EP. Poppy co-wrote the song with Titanic Sinclair, Tommy English and Simon Wilcox, and it was produced by English.

Gallery

Photoshoot

Other

Bubblebath Tease

Promotional video featuring snippet of "Money".

Bubblebath Tease -2

Promotional video featuring snippet of "Altar".

Cover with promotional text.

Trivia

• The EP is mostly referenced by Poppy in several posts she has made as Bubble Bath instead of Bubblebath.
  • However, the EP has only been stylized as Bubblebath by streaming platforms and Island Records posts.
• The song "Chewing Gum" was supposed to be the B-side to Bubblebath, as confirmed by Poppy herself on the website Genius.
• Poppy stated in an interview that "Lowlife" and "Money" are her favorite songs from the EP.^{[citation needed]}
• Physical copies of Bubblebath, including vinyl records, were originally planned, but these releases never came to fruition.^{[citation needed]}
• The cover art was photographed by Titanic Sinclair.
• Coincidentally, the EP was released on Titanic Sinclair's 29^th birthday.
• In July 2015, Jenna Nelson posted a picture of Poppy on Instagram with the caption "checkout the new album on July 24th", possibly implying that the release date for the scrapped Bubblebath album was planned to be July 24^th, 2015, coinciding with the release of "Lowlife".