Schizo Pop

"Schizo Pop" is the first single from Romo's second studio album POPSTAR: The Life & Times Of Belle Ball. The song was written by Romo and co-produced by Romo and Indigo Peak's Andre Cassenove. The single was released November 3, 2008 as a physical single and the week before to downloads. It marked a change in direction for the singer after she realized doing alternative rock bored her, deciding to veer in a pop direction.

The song's title is taken from a term used in the indie music press to describe eclectic styles of music combining different genres.

The single became Romo's third consecutive #1 hit, making her the first act since Mars/Venus in 2003 to have her first three singles hit #1; it currently stands as her best selling single to date, selling over 475,000 copies in its first two months of release. That was enough to give her the second highest selling single of 2008, just behind Indigo Peak and Izzy's "Active Duty/Fever".

On January 11, 2009, "Schizo Pop" was certified double platinum with sales of over 500,000 copies, becoming the thirteenth single in Urapopstar history to do so.

"Schizo Pop" won the award for Best Single at Urapopstar Awards 16.

Background and writing
Romo was originally planning to release a third single from her debut album Eve in late fall 2008, but scrapped those plans when she posted this announcement on September 20, 2008:

"I had an epiphany after releasing the album, everyone walked up to the street telling me HEY IT'S YOKO HOMO ROMO THE BORING BITCH, DID YOUR DEAD HUSBAND DIE BECAUSE YOU BORED HIM? Then I listened to the album and it made me want to puke. Vile. I can't believe I actually thought it was quite decent at a time."

Uncertain about her musical future, Romo decided to clear her mind of the stress by going out to the clubs. Inspired by the sights and sounds she encountered, she finally settled on recording a pop record. But she didn't want to make it seem obvious that she was "selling out" so she decided to write a song against commercialism. "Using a commercial sound to protest commercialism, when people are too closed minded to get your message across because it doesn't sound tailor made for radio, seems to be the most logical way to be heard by a mass audience and say, I've had it up to here with the media."

Romo wrote a rough draft of a song entitled "Revolution Of Conformity", with an arrangement inspired by the band Pendulum. But after going to a rave party where she met a group of obsessed fans of Jack Stevens and Jake making remarks about their music such as how it's made for "schizos like us", she had a flash of inspiration and came up with the hook "Give me 10 copies of that schizo pop". In addition to changing the title, Romo changed some other lyrics around and altered the composition after another flash of inspiration while listening to Alesha's song "Blow Your Speakers Out", which appeared on her album The Second Coming. Romo recorded "Revolution Of Conformity", complete with the scrapped original arrangement, as a B-side to her single "The Carpet Didn't Bleed By Itself".

"Schizo Pop" was described simply by Romo as "an attack on consumer culture"; the lyrics put down many of its elements, including obsessive fans, gossip columnists, and overhyped celebrities. The song contains various pop culture references, from Perez Hilton to even the Disney movie Pinocchio. The reference to debut single "Face For Rehab" was included because the mention of the "lingering aftertaste" of "cookie cutter consumers" echoed the line "Bitter jealousy's aftertaste lingers in my throat".

The song features an uncredited vocal appearance from China on the hook. China later covered it as a track on the deluxe edition of her second album Censor My Ambitions, on which Romo collaborated with China on the single "Covergirl".

"Schizo Pop" is the fourth track on POPSTAR, signaling the aftermath of the tabloids' response to the events of the preceding track, "Cathy Dennis". Belle Ball is critically maligned for her diva trips in the studio and her public image suffers as a result, but her creative output continues to do well because her fan base doesn't care as long as the quality of her music doesn't suffer, which it doesn't, given that fans continue to be obsessed with her singles.

Structure and influence
"Schizo Pop" is a heavy, pulsating electropop track, helped by Romo's co-production work with Andre Cassenove from Indigo Peak. Romo requested her sound to be like "Girls Aloud and Shiny Toy Guns if they were on coke". The demo was written in the style of a happy hardcore track, but was ultimately abandoned for a more radio-friendly arrangement to complement the immediacy of the hook.

The song carries an unconventional verse structure, each containing different tempos and vocal deliveries. The first verse alternates between rapping and singing, while the second and third verses are near-rapped. The chorus is the repeated phrase, "Give me 10 copies of that schizo pop". The song's title is repeated a total of 40 times.

The structural patterns were based upon Girls Aloud singles, while the vocals were inspired by Lady Gaga's work on her debut album The Fame.

"Schizo Pop" contains Romo's first instance of shouting in an intro, altering her voice to shout, "Yoko Romo - is back bitches!" This intro not only parodied Taylor Brookes' habit of addressing the singer as "Yoko Romo", but also the DJ shouts in many mainstream hip-hop records. Though this was the only song on POPSTAR to contain a shout, it has since become one of Romo's distinguishable trademarks due to the single's success, as Romo implemented the use of shouts in hits for other artists and later on several songs on the follow-up album POPSTAR 2: Belle After Death.

Reception
"Schizo Pop" received rave reviews from many of Romo's fans and industry peers, but critics were not as friendly. Rolling Stone criticized Romo for "using the most tired trick in the book, fighting industry cliches with industry cliches, to sell records". Many others expressed their distaste in Romo abandoning her alternative rock roots.

Rouge, who released their single "Boyfriend" against Romo on November 3, released a statement slamming Romo's change of direction, claiming "she's full of shit" and "not a real artist". Group member Kerri Jones added she felt "let down" by the change in direction because she "bought into" the style she represented in her debut album Eve. Romo responded she'd be less of a real artist if she weren't daring and stuck to the same style all the time, going on to attack Rouge by saying, "What a joke. Come on, ROUGE? More like RED DYE #2. They can't sing, their voices are autotuned to bollocks. They can't write their own music either. And they're only famous because Jack Stevens is sleeping with them. And they have the nerve to say I'm full of shit? Just brilliant."

Perez Hilton followed suit by alleging that Romo's pop direction was a Halloween trick to lure buyers of electropop records to her original material.

The single's B-side, a "mash-up" cover of M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" and a freestyle of the Jay-Z/T.I./Kanye West/Lil Wayne collaboration "Swagga Like Us" (which samples "Paper Planes"), was as well received by fans as the A-side.

Track listings
CD1
 * 1) Schizo Pop (album version)
 * 2) Schizo Pop (radio edit)
 * 3) Paper Planes/Swagga Like Us (freestyle)
 * 4) Deception Inn (30-second clip)
 * 5) Nocturnal Emission (30-second clip)

CD2
 * 1) Schizo Pop (Alesha's Borderline Sell-Out Disorder Remix)
 * 2) Schizo Pop (UpTempo Straight-Jacket Edit)
 * 3) Schizo Pop (EC's Electrostyle & Funky Beat Remix)
 * 4) Schizo Pop (IP's Electrophrenic Dead By Xmas REFUCK)
 * 5) Schizo Pop (Phoenix Rising Schizo-Rock Mix)
 * 6) Schizo Pop (Fetch "the clippers" Remix)
 * 7) Schizo Pop (Blow Up London Town remix)
 * 8) Schizo Pop Hero (Romo VS Zak)

DVD
 * 1) Schizo Pop (uncensored music video)
 * 2) The Making of the Schizo Pop Video
 * 3) Fleeing The Ribbon Cutting Ceremony (Live at Wembley)
 * 4) Deleted Scenes
 * 5) Gag Reel

Promotion
Full time promotion for the single began the weekend of October 11-12, 2008. During the course of promotion Romo received a citation for parking in a handicapped space without a permit, asked members of a retirement community for feedback on her single, and pledged to spend lots and lots of money to boost the failing economy. Other appearances included an unsuccessful bout in speed dating and a costume party where she dressed as 80's-era Madonna.

The single's cover art is similar to the cover of Sarah Summers' 2006 #1 single "13/Ladder In My Tights".

Music video
The video received its world premiere on Friday, October 24, 2008. It has a dystopian theme, set in a futuristic society in the year 2750 known as the "Xenomanian State" (named after Xenomania) where the government controls the entertainment industry. The Xenomanian State's flavor of the month is a mysterious pop singer named "Belle" (portrayed by Romo) who is given heavily saturated media coverage in order to help sell her records and raise massive funds for the government. This aggressive means of marketing leads to long lines at record stores for people purchasing copies of Belle's records. The video itself contains an aggressive marketing ploy by inserting subliminal images of Romo having sex scattered throughout the video.

But the excessive media coverage surrounding Belle, which even includes her own "Girls Gone Wild"-esque adult video, drives the citizens to a revolt. Belle reflects on the disaster that the government brought upon themselves by repetitively exploiting her. She takes a picture of the events of the revolt with her cell phone camera, and at the moment she deletes the image, the world ends in a nuclear disaster.

The video introduced Romo's alter ego Belle Ball, a pop sensation and tabloid target whose lavish lifestyle and outrageous habits transform her at the height of her stardom. The main events in Ball's life are chronicled in the Popstar album.

Chart performance
"Schizo Pop" entered the Urapopstar Top 40 Singles Chart at #8 on downloads only on November 2, 2008 with 45,624 downloads sold - over 20,000 more units than her previous single "Fleeing The Ribbon Cutting Ceremony" when it entered a spot higher at #7. The following week, "Schizo Pop" climbed to #2 in its first week of physicals with sales of 79,123 copies, making it Romo's best sales week even though she was outsold by Indigo Peak's "Grand Theft Auto" by a mere 110 copies. The following week "Schizo Pop" was able to fend off competition from Alesha and climb to #1 with sales of 71,323 copies. Romo became the first act since Mars/Venus in 2003 to have her first three singles reach the #1 spot.

"Schizo Pop" achieved high sales and staying power over the 2008 holiday season, finishing the year overall as 2008's second best selling single. It sold a total of 520,962 copies, making it the 14th best selling single of all time and Romo's best selling single to date. "Schizo Pop" was the best-selling single released under Elite Entertainment until it was outsold by Ana Simpson's final single "A Million Tales".

The song also fared very well on the airplay charts, spending four weeks at #1 and ranking as the year's 14th most played song.

Legacy
"Schizo Pop" has been credited as a turning point for pop music in the late 2000s, allowing artists who blend electropop and alternative influences like China, Elice Claire and MIDNIGHT to ascend to blockbuster popularity. China and Elice would both open for Romo on her Belle's Ball tour, which proved a star-making tour for both artists and up and coming pop group Phoenix Rising, and brought Esmeralda Dimuzio back to relevance resulting in a mid-career resurgence that peaked, coincidentally, with the Romo-penned "Monster's Mask".

Despite Romo's career shifts since, "Schizo Pop" remains part of her live performances and is typically the song she will close her concerts with.

Because of the single's lasting cultural impact, Romo referenced "Schizo Pop" in several successive recordings. On her verse on Alesha's "The Pretty Ones" (which also featured China and Emily Henning), Romo boasts to the antagonist that she is more successful because "we all bought ten copies of that schizo pop". On the POPSTAR 2 track "Sucks To Be You", Romo acknowledges the song's possible adverse effect on her audience by saying, "Sick of your schizo pop so I put the single on eBay".

KENYA's verse on the remix of Romo's single "Piccadilly Circus" references the song's opening lines, changing the lyrics to reflect the song's theme of the overexposure of product placement: "And every time I turn around I see a face staring at me / With a logo on the left cheek and a slogan on the right".

Sabrina has also mentioned the song in diss tracks against Romo.

Sequels
The follow-up single "Nocturnal Emission" was written as a sequel to "Schizo Pop".

The lead single from Romo's third album POPSTAR 2: Belle After Death, entitled "TITS-FM!", is considered an unofficial sequel to "Schizo Pop" because of its pulsating electropop rhythms and continued criticism of commercialization. Coincidentally, "TITS-FM!" was commercially released exactly one year after "Schizo Pop".

Cover versions

 * China, on the deluxe edition of Censor My Ambitions.
 * Disney Channel singer Melina Lopez released her own version as a single in the United States to promote the soundtrack to her TV series The Witches of West Village. The single managed to reach the top 40 of Billboard's Hot 100 thanks to digital sales.
 * A version of the song was also featured on the TV series Glee.
 * URAPS Idol 12 contestant Oscar Burton performed an avant-garde rendition of "Schizo Pop" for URAPS #1 Hits week.