Meljoann comments on our modern dystopia in infectious experimental pop track “Data Ghost”

In their new single “Data Ghost”, DIY hyperpop artist Meljoann provides a commentary on our broken digital landscape framed through the lens of deliciously weird pop beats.

In the single, textured instrumentals enshroud Meljoann’s vocals in a cyberpunk universe of off-kilter sound. The disorienting environment frames a re-telling of our existence between the real world and the digital. Where does the bleeding of the two end and begin? And is the compelling nature of the digital space a whimsical distraction, or a dangerous seduction?

Featuring piercing electric guitar, jagged beats, industrial noise, and percussive synths, the song is an ode to the surreal feeling of living a life half in reality and half in a screen. “‘Data Ghost’ is about falling through the cracks of the algorithm,” Meljoann says about the track. The single is also accompanied by a nostalgia-fueled self-directed video that, true to Meljoann's style, is uploaded on a third-party site to not feed the Google Machine.

Using avant-pop as a tool for change, projects like this are a reminder that technology can be fun, and sometimes still is, but we are reaching a dangerous threshold with it too. The endless selling of data, nonstop marketing campaigns, and sole ownership of the web by big tech is turning a once limitless haven into a brain-rotting hellscape. Luckily, the world is looking for ways to restore peace. “Our community is creating grassroots networks, building on open tech and anarchist principles of dual power and mutual aid,” Melojoann says.

Likened to artists from SOPHIE to Janet Jackson, Meljoann’s “Data Ghost” comes out just ahead of the release of the Irish musician’s innovative third album Status, out next week. The timely project extends on Meljoann’s commentary of technology, using their delicious odd-pop sound as a tool for change.

“There is an important conversation to be had around the fact that our culture is controlled by billionaires,” she says. “This album describes this late-capitalist dystopia, in which Big Tech and Big Data hold our fates in their ghoulish hands. It also describes how we can escape.”