“The world has lots of people like me who face pain, sadness and ordinariness,” Huang Yuxuan tells Apple Music. “That’s what life is.” Performing under the name burger.cue—the nickname 汉堡黄 [“Burger Huang”] was bestowed on her by fans after she ate four burgers during a livestream—Huang assembles her life experiences between the ages of 18 and 21 into [i]BURGER POP, [/i]a moody, layered debut album of dreams and heartache. With a wired, Gen-Z approach to culture unconstrained by technological or artistic barriers, Huang cites a genre-agnostic range of formative influences, from PJ Harvey and Nirvana to Justin Bieber, Ski Mask the Slump God and beabadoobee. Having first made a splash online with covers of an eclectic range of songs posted to social media, her own music is similarly broad in scope: Sultry synth-pop (“foreplay”) and wistful R&B (“nightmare freestyle”, a duet with The Crane) share space with angsty alt-rock (“THINK BOUT YOU”). Xu Yi, guitarist for Soundtoy, contributes to “当你穿过我的身体” [“When you pass through my body”], while Chen Hengjia, guitarist of Chengdu duo The Prism, produced “someday somewhere”, continuing Huang’s engagement with established acts begun on collaborations with Taipei’s Sunset Rollercoaster and Chongqing’s Neon Garden in 2021. A sense of melancholy permeates [i]BURGER POP[/i], even on a romantic track like “快一点,慢一点” [“faster, slower”] where escapist yearning and tender psychedelia are punctuated by the refrain, “Just blame everything on me.” The album’s Chinese and English lyrics are earnest and intensely personal but depict common experiences, reminding listeners whose enthusiasm for the world is dampened with aching pessimism and confusion that they’re not alone. Below, Huang tells Apple Music the stories behind some of the album’s songs and shares a peek into the production process. “foreplay” “This is the first song I’ve written in a synth-pop style. Writing it was an interesting experience. My guitarist—who’s also one of the producers of this album—sent me a text saying, ‘Are you interested in doing something with this snippet I’ve worked up?’ I didn’t have much of a reaction, because I’ve never liked much synth in my music. But I was afraid of hurting his feelings so I thought, [let’s] go ahead and freestyle over it a little. I never expected it to gain unanimous praise from my friends.” “努奇猫”, “Meow” “This one I wrote for my cat. It came together all at once, more naturally than any other song in my creative life. I used to be so scared of cats that I hated them—I thought they weren’t as friendly and loving as dogs. Cats have a temper and sometimes they’ll just scratch you for no reason. But when I met my cat Nuqi, there’s no match for the warmth and happiness she gives me. She leaned against me while I was lying in bed and in 20 minutes I had the song finished. She brings me inspiration and eases my anxieties. That’s the magic she has.” “乌鸦”, “Crow” “This one may have a more worldly [scope]—but for me the writing process makes it a very personal song. I grew up in a traditional Chinese family. The ordinary, not especially happy life I led isn’t something I like reminiscing about now that I’m grown up. I avoid the presence of that misery because I can’t face situations that are in any way imperfect.” What inspires the emotional content of your songs? “Creative inspiration comes from my own stories. Each time I write, it’s a process of understanding myself. I feel like my songs all share a certain melancholy, pessimism and loneliness—but that’s an inseparable part of my personality. I hope listeners know that they’re not the only ones who feel that way. I do too.” Were there any moments of serendipity during production? “The piano bridge on ‘foreplay’ I came up with by humming. I had a special feeling the moment I wrote it. It felt pretty good to have a bit of space to breathe after a huge swathe of synths, like pouring water on a raging brushfire (at least in my mind). Then at the end I added samples of dying fire and mosquitoes—those odd yet richly lifelike details are one of the things that make my music distinctive. It rewards the careful listener with imaginative space. Then, when the samples end, the next song ‘怎么办’ [‘What to do’] begins seamlessly, so you’ve got to be alert to get what just happened.” What was it like working with The Crane on “nightmare freestyle”? “I’ve been aware of The Crane since his Crane Garden EP and was delighted to collaborate. Things went pretty smoothly, and the arrangement clicked immediately. For instrumentation, we elected for simplicity over sophistication and used a ukulele as the main voice to produce an overall feeling of refreshing loneliness. We tweaked details of the lengthy chorus to avoid the tedium of over-repetition. For example, we made it into a duet the second time—and for the last time, we let the ‘bae’ of ‘come to me bae’ stand alone unaccompanied. You want to make sure a hook with the same melody and lyrics can still feel fresh after all that build-up. The effect can sometimes be serendipitous rather than planned—you don’t want to be simply amusing yourself.”