pom pom

Released in 2014, pom pom represents a pivotal moment in Ariel Pink's career, being his first solo release after dropping the 'Haunted Graffiti' band moniker. Spanning 17 tracks and nearly 70 minutes, the album is a sprawling double-LP that synthesizes his earlier hypnagogic pop experiments into a high-fidelity art-pop magnum opus. A central narrative of the album's creation is the collaboration with legendary eccentric Kim Fowley, who co-wrote several tracks from his hospital bed shortly before his death. This collaboration infuses the record with a vaudevillian, transgressive energy that balances Pink's more melodic sensibilities. Musically, it draws heavily from Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention, the gothic textures of The Cure, and the studio wizardry of Todd Rundgren. Critically, it was hailed as a career peak, earning 'Best New Music' from Pitchfork and praise for its ability to be simultaneously accessible and deeply weird. It remains a definitive document of 2010s indie-pop's fascination with memory, irony, and genre-blurring.