Lemon Demon
Lemon Demon is a one-man band by internet personality Neil Cicierega, active from 2003 onwards. To date, eight albums are released[1], the first four of which now available for free, and there are some other singles and extended plays attributed to his music.
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It’s Lemon Demon, oh, lemon out of hell! |
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Most of his songs could be considered Mind Screw, though given he created Animutation, this shouldn't be surprising.
As a fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000, he had three songs inspired by it: "Idiot Control Now", "Smell Like A Cookie All Day", and "Nightmare Fuel".
He is known largely for his song The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny featuring many pop culture figures in a fight.
Discography:
- Clown Circus (2003)
- Live From The Haunted Candle Shop (2003)
- Hip To The Javabean (2004)
- Damn Skippy (2005)
- Dinosaurchestra (2006)
- View-Monster (2008)
- Live (Only Not) (2011)
- I Am Become Christmas (2012)
- Nature Tapes (2014)
- Spirit Phone (2016)
- Something Glowing (2020)
Lemon Demon provides examples of the following tropes:
- Abusive Parents: Downplayed in "As Your Father I Expressly Forbid It", and then Justified in "I Earn My Life".
- Anti-Christmas Song: The entirety of the I Am Become Christmas EP.
- Anti-Love Song: Only 2 of his love songs are actual love songs, the rest are parodies or subversions of some sort.
- Ascended Meme: Is fond of "Brodyquest" and its continued popularity because in his words, it is "the stupidest song I've ever made" and he thinks it's funny. Helps that despite being a meme, it is still a very unknown meme.
- Back from the Dead: Deconstructed in "Lifetime Achievement Award".
- Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: A lot of his Lemon Demon songs start out as fairly tame before turning utterly bizarre.
- Bow Chicka Wow Wow: Part 3.4 of the interactive video "Haircut". "Do you slap her in the face, or do you Bow Chicka-Chicka Wow-Wow?"
- Cozy Catastrophe: "Aurora Borealis" is about a romantic date at the end of the world.
- Epic Instrumental Opener: BRODYQUEST starts off as a progressive instrumental track, until the name of the character walking throughout the whole thing starts begin chanted while he becomes the universe.
- Everything's Better with Monkeys: Inverted with "Fiberglass Monkey."
- Foe Yay: It seems to be going on in "Ben Bernanke", from what can be understood of the song.
- Hey, It's That Guy!: Not really with his voice so much as his works. It can be pretty mind-blowing to learn that the guy who wrote Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny is the same person as the guy who does Potter Puppet Pals is the same person as the guy who invented Animutation is the same as the guy who does those funny videos on YouTube.
- I Am the Band: This is why Lemon Demon redirects to Neil's page.
- I Fell for Hours: "I've Got Some Falling to Do"
- I Love the Dead: Subverted in "Sweet Bod".
- Knife Fight: Trope Namer
- Limited Animation: The first three minutes of BRODYQUEST, before Adrien Brody becomes a rock star and then becomes the universe (possibly).
- Lonely at the Top: "It Can Get Lonely In My Mansion", about a man who builds all sorts of grandiose attractions in his house, only to discover than no-one really cares about them or him.
- Loony Fan: "Bill Watterson," "Gonna Dig Up Alec Guinness"
- Mind Screw: Oh yeah. Telekinesis is an especially good example.
- What about "Bowling Alley"? Even the narrator claims its like an acid trip.Not that he advocates drugs because Drugs Are Bad and stuff.
- "Sundial" is purposefully intended to be this, being a song with no meaning written to seem like it has a meaning.
- Most of his songs qualify, in fact.
- Mike Nelson, Destroyer of Worlds: "The Saga of You, Confused Destroyer of Planets"
- Nerds Are Sexy: "Geeks In Love"
- Overdrawn At the Blood Bank: Referenced in "Knife Fight".
- Red Right Hand: "Atomic Copper Claw"
- Robot War: "When Robots Attack!"
- Rockstar Song: Defied with Being a Rock Star.
- Shout-Out: As mentioned, several to Mystery Science Theater 3000.
- A bonus track on View-Monster called "Nightmare Fuel" should qualify.
- He's pretty much the master of obscure and nerdy Shout Outs - after, all, he sang Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny.
- Goosebumps is a love song comprised of Goosebumps titles.
- Surreal Music Video: Word Disassociation. The video is with pieces of paper with random words on them, put next to random places. God, I can't explain more.
- Take That: The song "Ebaums World Dot Com", which consists primarily of insults directed at the eponymous site and its founder, Eric Bauman. Several of Neil's close friends have had Flash videos stolen by Ebaum, so it comes as no surprise.
- Toilet Humour: "Mr. Porta-Potty Man".
- Trope Namer: For the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny and Knife Fight tropes.
- Unflinching Walk: Parodied in "Action Movie Hero Boy".
- Wetware CPU: "Cabinet Man", a song about someone who transplanted their brain and a few organs into an arcade cabinet.
- Word Salad Lyrics: "Word Disassociation" is this trope taken more-or-less as far as it can go.
- Yandere: "Ben Bernanke" has this vibe, among other things.
- Zombie Apocalypse: "Bad Idea"
- ↑ not including his older musical efforts