Fishmonger (2021)

Fishmonger is the debut studio album by the American musician Underscores, self-released on March 25, 2021. Running out of ideas for production techniques, Underscores challenged herself to play the guitar on every song of the album as she had little experience with the instrument. She recorded Fishmonger in her parents' house during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Critics identified Fishmonger as a hyperpop album that incorporates various genre influences into its soundscape. The album is characterized by glitchy production, distorted guitars, and pitched-up vocals, discussing celebrity culture in its lyrics. Underscores designed Fishmonger as being based around a coastal New Jersey town. The album was promoted by two singles—"Second Hand Embarrassment" and "Kinko's Field Trip 2006"—and the album's artwork was photographed in Longport, New Jersey.

Fishmonger garnered positive reception from music publications; The Atlantic considered it one of the best albums of 2021, while The Line of Best Fit deemed it one of the best hyperpop albums of all time. It also was received positively by high-profile musicians; the album allowed Underscores to tour with Glaive and Ericdoa and book studio sessions with 100 gecs and Travis Barker. Fishmonger received a companion extended play (EP), Boneyard AKA Fearmonger, in December 2021, and the Fishmonger era concluded with the single "Count of Three (You Can Eat $#@!)" in January 2023.

Background and production

Underscores began releasing music online at age 13. She originally created dubstep and electronic dance music but became bored of "using the same sounds", leading her to incorporate other influences. In 2015, she released her debut single, "Mild Season", which was followed by her debut extended play (EP), Air Freshener, the next year. While Air Freshener was mainly instrumental, her second EP, 2018's Skin Purifying Treatment, incorporated lyrics and influences from jazz music. She released two more EPs: We Never Got Strawberry Cake in 2019, and Character Development! in 2020.

On Fishmonger, her debut album, Underscores forced herself to play the guitar on every song; before making the album, she had little experience with the instrument. This was due to her running out of production techniques at the time and being dissatisfied with the voicings she played on the keyboard. Fishmonger was created in her parents' house during the COVID-19 pandemic. Underscores described her experience of contacting 8485 to appear on Fishmonger as difficult because she highly respected 8485 and "thought she was a larger than life person".

Composition

Overview

Fishmonger is a hyperpop album characterized by glitchy production, distorted guitars, and pitched-up vocals. Lyrically, the album explores themes of celebrity culture and more personal topics than Underscores' previous releases. An album with unpredictable song structures, Fishmonger is based around a coastal New Jersey town. The Fader's David Renshaw felt it contained influences of pop-punk and electronic music and was "branded as hyperpop", while Colin Joyce of the same magazine called it an "album full of digi-punk contortions". Matthew Kim from The Line of Best Fit said the album "cycled through hyperpop, garage punk, emo rap, dubstep and psychedelic ambience like it was nothing". For the same magazine, Noah Simon described the album as "an indie-pop-rock-punk-hyperpop bonanza". Natalie Marlin of Paste called it "a hyperactive blend of hyperpop, dubstep, and speaker-blowing digitized rock". NPR's Reanna Cruz said the album is "equally digicore as it is emo" and draws from SoundCloud rap and the music from Spotify's "Lorem" playlist. They said this blend of genres results "in a delightful blend of emotional sincerity and distorted chaos".

Songs

The opening track of Fishmonger is "70%", a garage rock and surf rock track driven by lap steel guitar. Simon described Underscores' performance on the track as "erratic" and "screeching". It is followed by "Second Hand Embarrassment", an indie pop track that combines whispered vocals and an electronic instrumental with "bubbly" 808 drums. "Bozo Bozo Bozo" contains a pop and R&B instrumental that "then caves in on itself". Joyce described the instrumental "as if the Darkchild discography you once downloaded from LimeWire had started to corrupt and corrode over time". The track is lyrically self-critical; Underscores apologizes for "oversharing to the friends [she] made by lying on the internet" in one of its lines. An alt-rock track, "Kinko's Field Trip 2006" contains pitched-up vocals over an energetic chorus and distorted guitars.