Premiere: Lenii chomps down on Froot Loops for new ‘Cereal’ lyric video
The Irish pop star punctures the tension from a breakup with a chewy lyric video.
Some people just can’t read the room. In the throes of heartache, Irish pop upstart Lenii (real name Ellen Murphy) first lets her tears literally splash into her bowl of Froot Loops before shoving a creeper out her front door. “These tears that fall in my cereal say / I’m not ok please give me my space, babe,” she pleads. “Won’t lie, it was good to see your face / But you heard I left my love / I guess you thought you’d take his place.” With her sugar sweet new song “Cereal,” paired with an appropriately up-close lyric video, premiering today on B-Sides & Badlands, she ratchets up both the humor and static intensity.
“You can just peddle yourself right in out of here, sweetie,” a disembodied voice spits, a spoken line.
Not allowing her pain to blur the lines or intentions, Lenii continues making her stance known “So you think that you can say / Anything and I’ll just cave in / Oh baby, you’ve got another thing coming,” she grinds her teeth. Her voice feathers across her syllables but never at the expense of scaly bite. She hooks you in, dragging and screaming, and you feel an empowered high just the same.
The song, produced by Nick Sadler, fractures hyper power-pop with slinky and brooding songwriting ⏤ and her hardship scars swell and redden. “I had recently broken up with my boyfriend, who I was with for over 2 years, and it was the worst thing I have ever experienced,” she says. “Almost immediately, at a time when I was at my most vulnerable, a close friend swooped in thinking I was up for grabs. I was so angry that my own feelings were totally disregarded ,and I was made feel like an object that could be passed around.”
Then, the lyric video serves to puncture some of that tension without minimizing Lenii’s anguish. On the lyric video, Lenii writes over email: “It was super DIY. I shot it sitting on the floor of my Brooklyn apartment with the help of my sister. We only had one box of fruity loops so she poured them over me and we swept them off the floor to use them again for the next shot,” she explains. “Pouring them in my mouth was the final shot ⏤ we clearly didn’t think it through! So, there was a ton of dust and hair ⏤ it was absolutely disgusting.”
“Cereal” is the second offering from her forthcoming EP, In All Fairness…, expected later this year.
Watch below:
