Concert Review: An Intro To “IntroPop” With Preston Pablo
I was five days younger than today when I found Pop music is short for “Popular.” This was like when I found out “bistec” is a Latino abbreviation for beefsteak, and “gringo” is another Latinofied term for “green card.” IM SHOOK! The meaning of words, even in slang or abbreviation, is alway a descendant from a code of emotionality or sociality. In essence, no word is without meaning, and Preston Pablo sees that with his “Intropop,” my code for his introspective pop at Mercury Lounge.
Okay! Now, I’m getting wordy, too! Yet, the last recent years of “Pop” music have been dominated by songsters like Omar Apollo, SZA, or Sad Girl Sloan that fused the genre with other genres by making links between sound and self-analysis. All of them simply understood that if there is anything rising generations of youth understand is A) escapist fun and B) existential self-sabotage. In essence, we may hate ourselves but we love to have fun. Pablo blends this dynamic to create an “intropop” persona that had Mercury Lounge enamored and, myself, fascinated.
There was a time in “Pop” when acting like heartbreak was a candy land of good vibes and sparkly berets was vital to your career. Now, I think people would burn their eyes out. NOW, the fantasy is the reality, and being able to churn a hit by making everyone feel they are still in their bedroom swimming in their post-breakup feelings. The crowd admired him and his pocket fandom would have followed him to the end of the world because the internet IS “Intropop.”
There are 8 billion people in the world, and, at least, 5 billion are artists on TikTok. Yet, they all have their loyalists because they croon to the mental health over pining lovers, and that means something to people. They want to see themselves before they start seeing anyone else, and Preston Pablo strolls that stage, with mic in hand, like an open diary. Looking into his audience’s eyes and reaching out to their hands like one would a long-awaited pen; finally writing unto the page of their souls all his feels.
