What if your average pop-culture obsessed, geeky troper were to be combined with a pretty, stuggling female musician on YouTube? Then perhaps you'd have the teen hormone-drenched songs of Allison Beth Goertz (born March 2, 1991).
Combine the wit of Bo Burnham, a modern folk feel voice, and all the nostalgic and geeky pop-culture references you can handle with a wonderful high voice and an introspective, melancholy twist. Fan fiction-y songs often revolving around the inner termoil of fictional characters, unrequited love and adolescent angst. These expriences are undoubtedly mined from her personal life as great art often is (just gender swapped, as most of her characters are male). These songs are often Bathos, combining your sympathy for characters like Sam Weir from Freaks and Geeks with quiet one-liners. Sometimes she sings with back up singer Megan, Allie has been described by one Youtube commenter as being like "Jonathan Coulton sans beard", probably because of her unsual song subject matter, indie feel while still having a geeky appeal as fans can sympathize with their socially inept, obsessive, and sad protagonists.
In addition to her musical work, she's co-hosted a couple of podcasts and served as a social media producer for @Midnight and an editor for MAD magazine during its short-lived West Coast reboot. She's also dabbled in acting, even appearing in an episode of Arrested Development.
Allie Goertz and her music contain the following tropes:
- Ambiguously Bi: Her song for Megan describes the titular love interest as her first female crush.
- Break Up Song: The Ren & Stimpy song, with Homoerotic Subtext as fitting the series. Hookers and Blow are mentioned, minus the blow.
- Concept Album/New Sound Album: Sad Dance Songs, a Rick and Morty-related concept album with somewhat of an Electronic Music feel in contrast or her earlier, folkier songs.
- Cover Album: Peeled Back, her forthcoming album of Nine Inch Nails covers.
- Even Nerds Have Standards: Her song "Open Letter to Myself (Elitism)" finds her chiding herself for her own pop culture snobbery, which some might label as Hipster although she is aware of her so-called elitism and acknowledges it in a sort of self-deprecating way. She is not promoting pride in the obscure (or to be pious in one's interests), like a hipster would, but rather poking fun at it.
- Give Geeks a Chance: "Everything's Coming Up Milhouse", a Simpsons filk song. Invoked in the cover, "Lamer than Lame".
- Perfectly Cromulent Word: Her Simpsons-themed song "Everything's Coming Up Milhouse" references a made-up word but not the trope namer. ("Life has given you lemons, you've squozen your supply"). A Shout-Out to the episode "Lemon of Troy", this sound abounds with Simpsons quotes.
- Pun-Based Title: Her series of Cover Songs with the apt title "Under the Covers".
- Shout-Out: Her songs have referenced such works as The Hobbit, Dungeons & Dragons, Breaking Bad, and Pee-wee's Playhouse in addition to those already mentioned.
- "it's log, log, it's big, it's heavy, it's wood, it's log, it's log, it's better than bad, it's good" — The Ren & Stimpy ShowThanks
