The Pop Corporation

Leftfield pop can too often mean that an artist is making something fun, but wilfully awkward, so rock fans can assuage themselves from feelings of selling out.

However, when you apply the term properly, you have pure pop and all that comes with it, just a smidge left of centre to make it feel more underground, but no less accessible. Instead of trying to be arch, and make pop-that’s-actually-a-bit-anti-pop, leftfield pop should still be intent on spreading a massive smile across your face.

And so, to Gelli Haha’s brilliant album, ‘Switcheroo’ which is so shiny and fantastic that you want it to explode and sell a million, while you bounce across your room.

In parts, you’ll be reminded of the wonderful Tom Tom Club and, say, NYC loft disco, in others, the Human League and ’90s house. It’s even parts Moldy Peaches. It’s DFA Records and’ D.A.N.C.E.’ by Justice.

It’s eccentric, it’s silly, it’s all the fun bits of your record collection but in no way throwaway – this is very obviously one of the best albums of 2025, and if you want to fill yourselves with the joys of life, you need to get on board quickly.

See, it is an unvalued thing that in hard times, you need some levity and childlike wonder – and that’s what ‘Switcheroo’ has in bucketloads. Better yet, it has a great sense of humour.

As well as all the gleeful daftness, in places, the production is refreshingly crispy and LoFi, giving the album an analogue warmth that’ll have modular synth enthusiasts doing somersaults. It’s pop music for sure, but there’s an oddness to it that’s utterly compelling. You can waste your time trying to work out if it’s a bit, if the whole thing is an affectation or, if you’re smart, you’ll just throw yourself into it whole and have a good time.

While the whole thing is wrapped up in day-glo clowncore, this isn’t an immature affair – in fact, we’re more in the mind that this is the pop music that might fall out of Sarah Sherman from SNL’s head, if you loaded her up with sugar instead of schlocky horror.

One of the lead singles – ‘Bounce House’ – promised a lot, and was a whole bunch of fun. However, elsewhere, you get the pure rush of the fabulous ‘Tiramasu’, which morphs into a “miss you” plea that pounds harder as it rollicks along, getting more raggedy as it peaks.

On the latter, you can hear the grimy clubs and wrecked trainers stomping through the bubbling synths and dirty disco bass. It’s really magic and feels like sweating on a dancefloor, even while you’re on the commute.

If you’re thinking this might be a fun LP to listen to with a younger member of the family to bond over, Gelli casually drops in ‘Piss Artist’ to put paid to that, where she begins “oh my god, did I tell you about that one time that like, I peed in a in a glass jar in, like, a room full of my friends?” before telling you about a “hottie with big tits and nipple piercings.”

It’s absurdist, it’s silly, and it’s difficult to spot who else on the scene is making music quite like this, or indeed, where she might fit in. Not that you should worry yourself unduly with anything as trivial as that. See, there’s a brand of pop – is it Alt Pop? – which Magdalena Bay have been making, which feels more in tune with this album. It’s smart, has a good record collection, but still wants to produce good time music for everyone.

We could be pretentious and offer some ideas about how Dadaist art is always needed in times of strife, and how maybe things that appear shallow are actually much richer in times of need… but that’s not our immediate takeaway here.

It’s all whizzes and boinks and that funny turning you get in your stomach when you go down a big dipper, and candyfloss… but with sly cigs and mushroom gummies at a house party.

We’ve rolled around in this album a fair bit, and start to finish, we have such a great time listening to it, and had such a stupid grin on our face that we press play again as soon as it finished, and that’s more than enough.

Make some time for yourself, make some time for joy, and make time for this album.