On the cover: Lady Gaga, Melanie Martinez, Britney Spears, Marina, Elita, Rhea Doll, Kerli, Poppy, Lana Del Rey, Glüme, Rebecca Black, Jazmin Beans, Rhea Key 1024, Melanie (Portals), Mia Rodriguez, Kyary Pamyu Pamyu
In the music scene, there is a phantom movement, spectral in the true sense of the word. Amidst pastel colors and seemingly reassuring melodic tunes, a disquiet lurks, stemming from the more or less hidden expression of an intimate narrative of dark experiences. Creepy pop is the artistic sensibility that merges "creepy," meaning scary and unsettling, with "pop," which is popular and widely consumed.
The Dark Roots of the Movement
This particular musical movement draws its creepy inspiration from an aesthetic called "creepy cute," which originated in the first decade of the 2000s on online platforms like Tumblr.
The creepy cute aesthetic merges what is considered cute and pleasant with what is seen as repulsive or unsettling, with grotesque elements and dark humor.
Tumblr lent itself perfectly as fertile ground for this kind of vibe. Thanks to its easy-to-use diary-blog function, which allowed the teenage generation of the time to use pseudonyms, introspective sadness was recognized and honored as a romanticized aesthetic.
This trend is also known in Japan as "Gurokawa" (グロカワ, translatable as grotesque + cute).
Tamed Fear: The Healing Psychological Power of Creepy Pop
Psychologically, creepy cute, and therefore creepy pop, allows for the cathartic expression of one's fears and traumas in a safe environment, cradled by pleasant elements. It's an attempt to tame one's fears and anxieties, to make them digestible.
The result is the expression of emotions socially considered negative in an honorably curated and thoughtful way, so that they can be worn (or listened to) in daily life as a style choice.
Despite this, the viewer attracted by the brighter aspect of these creations remains even more disturbed by how the creepy element creeps in under the skin, hidden where it's not looking.
"You pick me like a strawberry
and I (and I die)”
— Rhea Key 1024, “Picking Strawberries” (2023)
This mechanism of contrast also works very well as an artistic tool: the perversion of something traditionally seen as pleasant and pure, degenerating into something uncontrollably scary, triggers a reaction that the viewer cannot ignore. An unexpected disturbance that fascinates.
A famous example of a very popular creepy cute product is Labubu, collectible art toys resembling fantasy creatures with long pointed ears, large cuddly eyes, and sharp teeth in an ambiguous nine-toothed smile. Labubu gained immense popularity, and the masses were divided between those who found them cute, those who found them ugly, and even some who accused them of being demonic products.
Labubu - Shutterstock
This demonstrates how in every creation with a dual nature, one of the two parts will prevail, to which the individual person will be unconsciously drawn at that particular moment.
The Pop Side: Which Artists Sing Creepy Pop?
Among the various branches of pop music, creepy pop falls within art pop.
Starting from catchy melodies typical of commercial songs, art pop blends artistic ideas and experimentation into a meticulously crafted aesthetic in the true sense of the word, and strong conceptualism. Artistic elements drawn from every expression such as theater, literature, cinema, and art school practices are combined with music, with the aim of creating a truly complete musical work of art, from concept, to look, sounds and lyrics, to performances and music videos.
Many world-renowned singers and artists have had creepy pop influences.
Melanie Martinez is the perfect example of what creepy pop music and the creepy cute aesthetic are. Dressed innocently like a doll in pastel colors, she named her character Cry Baby, her artistic alter ego of a hypersensitive child living in a fantasy world but in the worst possible deviation. A dark fairytale where she confronts bad wolves who want to kidnap her, violent family members in her dollhouse where everyone must be silent and keep heavy secrets just like flesh-and-blood dolls, unhealthy relationships with friends who abandon her, and lovers too beautiful to be good.
Melanie Martinez Pity Party music video
It's impossible not to mention Lady Gaga, with an album released in 2013 titled exactly "ARTPOP". Every new album is a conceptually different era for her; the performances and artistic references are meticulously studied.
The artist uses creepy pop primarily in her music videos, with grotesque, absurd fashion, staged rituals and sacrifices, and almost non-human figures. Her lyrics are also paradoxical and contrasting, a typical feature of creepy pop.
Lady Gaga live show - photo Kevin Mazur
“I want your love and I want your revenge”
— Lady Gaga, “Bad Romance” (2009)
"Paparazzi" talks about obsession, a recurring theme in pop music, and "911" about mental health and psychopharmaceuticals. Because of her use of this dark aesthetic symbolism, Lady Gaga faced accusations of affiliation with cults and demonic movements, and that she was trying to corrupt the masses with her superficially catchy music while hiding deep meanings.
Surprisingly, even Britney Spears, with her fresh and youthful style in very commercial and lively melodies, often masks provocative and sad themes in her music. This becomes apparent upon a deeper look at her lyrics and music videos: the song "If U Seek Amy," which at first glance seems to be about a girl impressing a boy at a club party, already in its title hides the spelling of "F-U-C-K ME," while the track criticizes the continuous superficial scrutiny of public opinion, showing the artist behind closed doors involved in wild parties and, once paparazzi wait for her outside her house, she dresses up as a pure and perfect family wife. Even "Circus" refers to public life, seen as a continuous circus and spectacle even when not on stage. "Toxic" also talks about a romantic obsession, and "Overprotected" about how Britney wishes to be free to make mistakes and experience adult life without being judged by everyone, in addition to the undeniable, almost autobiographical resemblance to her conservatorship situation (not yet widely known at the time) that she experienced during those years, which we realized much later.
Britney Spears - Billboard.com
Speaking of video games, "Doki Doki Literature Club!" presents itself as a cliché visual novel where you have to woo one of three anime-style girls, only to completely dismantle the game's mechanism by revealing immense psychological vulnerabilities of the characters and shocking the player with the sudden contrast.
Even "Omori" uses graphics with simple, almost childlike drawings to discuss intimate and sensitive themes like depression and trauma.
Pouty VS Creepy Pop: The Gentle Brooding in the Madame Bovarys of Music
In the alternative music scene, we also find the subgenre pouty (or poutycore), which is similar to but different from creepy pop in its intention and how dark themes are handled.
While in creepy pop, the intent is to make the listener uncomfortable and experience the gloomy sensations described, in pouty, we find a self-acceptance of human fragility and vulnerability, presented to the audience with gentleness.
This type of music aims to be objectively pleasant to listen to, not specifically unsettling like creepy pop.
“I Faked to be faked to be
She
She faked to be happy”
— Rhea Doll, “The Place” (2026)
Lana Del Rey is the ultimate example of pouty.
Lana Del Rey
The pouty individual is chronically sad and moody. Lana has stated that she has had a kind of obsession with death since childhood, which has influenced all of her artistic output.
Her melancholic and hypersensitive nature leads this personality to experience unsatisfactory situations and toxic relationships, like a kind of Madame Bovary, disgusted by the banality and boredom of daily life. These are capricious and somewhat spoiled personalities, who are not easily satisfied and tend to be nostalgic for a radiant past, even if it never existed.
Musically, pouty can be found in the more emotional and emotionally open alternative scene, between nostalgic emo and alternative pop.
Singer Marina also belongs to the pouty genre, sometimes more subtly with her characters boasting false high self-esteem. The song “Teen Idle” narrates profound emotional distress experienced in adolescence, including suicidal thoughts, eating disorders, and the desire to be someone one is not for society. This is presented with a tone of great regret and longing, with a continuous comparison to a possibly perfect life.
The Case of Rhea Doll: « who she is »
Rhea Doll is an emerging artist with various talents and artistic endeavors including music, writing, composition, drawing, and object construction. Her all-encompassing expressive style fully embodies the creepy pop movement, as well as the pouty one.
In the past known as Rhea Key 1024, she has an experimental approach to composition, revealing very intimate and emotional themes in her lyrics, conveyed with surreal tones and the dual nature of unsettling sweetness classic to the movement.
Her latest album, released in February 2026, "Doppelgänger", describes the duality of being, divided between the unconscious and hidden part (creepy) and the part shown on the surface and consciously controlled (pop).
“Someone told me that
I look like ‘a living cute doll
But it can’t be real just because you say so”
— Rhea Doll, “Monster Allergy” (2025)
Rhea is not intimidated by intensely emotional themes and dark thoughts, transforming them into art. In the discography of her two alter egos (Rhea Key 1024 in the past and now Rhea Doll), we find songs like "who am I, who are you" which deals with dissociation and emotional detachment from one's body, in "Monster Allergy" about the relationship with a narcissistic personality, "Chuff Chuff Boy" about the Japanese society she experienced firsthand, mentally distant but physically close in places like trains.
Doppelgänger Album - Rhea Doll
The artist's symbolic imagery is sweet and pure, like strawberries, roses, or teddy bears, yet conceals dark themes. I find that this concept is concretely and perfectly expressed in the handmade plush toys she has created, seemingly simple dolls with alternative tones, but with a pocket inside to hide keys, money, a secret diary, or any other private object: this is the essence of creepy pop.
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