Bad Omens – V.A.N. (Official Visual)

In January 2024, Bad Omens completely wiped their Instagram account, leaving fans theorising. Two mysterious and unsettling videos remained, starring Poppy. The abbreviation “V.A.N.” was left up for interpretation, with no meaning yet revealed. More ominous videos followed, confusing yet intriguing fans. When attempting to access the Bad Omens official website, all that remained was a simple message stating, “V.A.N HAS TAK3N OVER ACCESS OF THIS SITE.”

On January 24, 2024, the single was revealed. It served as the lead single for the reissue album Concrete Jungle [The OST] for the Concrete Jungle official comic. Poppy provided vocals for the entire song, written and produced by Noah Sebastian. The heavy and angelic elements mixed with robotic production, inspired by GLaDOS from the game Portal, instantly defined the song as a unique and narrative art piece. In the song, Poppy assumes the role of the AI character “V.A.N.,” which stands for “Violence Against Nature,” with a goal of destroying humanity. From Poppy’s calm, AI-esque vocals to her bloodcurdling screams, she embodies the notorious program perfectly. The haunting lyrics recite, “I am in your algorithm learning all your mannerisms, I'm already level with god / A million words a second and I know your imperfections / Baby, I'm the only future you've got.”

“Pretty early on, I did the reference vocal for some of the parts myself and I wanted to make a song where it felt like the voice, the vocalist of the song, was AI, or inhuman to some degree. It was kind of influenced by that game ‘Portal’ and the voice GLaDOS,” Frontman Noah Sebastion revealed to Rock Sound. “I had that hook, violence against nature, I had that as a lyric and it turned into a melody. It’s a lot to break down, but basically, when I had the delivery and the cadence in my head, it seemed like Poppy was just the obvious choice.”

In the same interview, Poppy added, “When he sent the song over, I thought it was really great and I remember just saying, ‘Oh, which part are you going to take?’ and he’s like, ‘Oh, no, this is all you’. I loved it right away and I thought it sounded really fun. And I was hoping we would get to do a video for it right when I heard it, so I’m glad we did.”

“Honestly, it didn’t really take that much consideration,” she continued. “It just seemed like an obvious match. I really respect the band and Noah and what he does. So working together was pretty obvious and we meshed really well. When we were recording in the session, there was a little bit of foreign territory, because I am used to usually sending vocals over. But we got to record together, and that’s cool, because Noah specifically knew what he was going for, so it was nice to be more in the moment and hands on in that process than just being sent a song and left to your own devices and work your way through it. You want to be sure that everyone’s vision aligns in the end.”

“V.A.N.” was immediately met with viral attention from both fans of Poppy, Bad Omens, and alternative music. Many major publications praised the song, and it ranked at number 10 on MetalHammer’s year-end “The 50 Best Metal Songs of 2024” list. Alongside taking high positions on the charts, “V.A.N.” also won Rock Sound’s “Song Of The Year” award.

The viral collaboration shook the world in 2024, further cementing both Bad Omens and Poppy as hard-hitting, innovative forces in alternative music.