Hoping to win a song-writing contest and get a record deal, Luna contemplates whether she should go with a song that's true to her sound or try to make something that the whole world will love. After imagining various random song numbers from her family and sending the perfect song though, Luna's excitement suddenly subsides when the producers completely change up her look and persona.
"Really Loud Music"
- Actually Quite Catchy: When Lily plays a bubblegum popsong and starts to dance to it, most of the family rushes to join in. Then Lucy comes out of her room:Lucy: I should hate it ... [cracks a smile] but I don't.Lisa: Likewise. Curse this inane yet diabolically catchy tune![Both join the dance]
- Arc Words: "My kind of song" and all variations thereof, sung by most of the other Louds at some point in their songs (except Lucy and Lisa).
- As Himself: Doug Rockwell and Michelle Lewis star as animated versions of themselves in this episode. This is a case where the guest stars are depicted as being positively awful scumbags.
- Big Ball of Violence: Lucy and Lynn fight after she broke Edwin's vampire teeth.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: When we first see Doug and Michelle in the commercial for America's Next Hitmaker, they both seem like wonderful people. When we finally meet them in person in Act 2....not so much.
- Bittersweet Ending: Luna ditches her Lulu persona pre-performance, meaning she's disqualified and doesn't get the record deal, but at least she's herself again and gets to show her true skills for her family.
- The Cameo: Mr. Grouse and the Casagrande family are briefly seen dancing to "Best Thing Ever".
- Comically Missing the Point:
- When Leni mistakes Luna for Lola due to her radically changed looks, Lola thinks Luna should take this as a compliment.
- When Luna is announced as "Lulu" during America's Next Hitmaker, Leni thinks that is her actual name and feels embarrassed for calling her Luna all these years.
- Continuity Nod: Leni's song is a love song about a text message she got from Chaz, who's shown to be her love interest in "L is for Love".
- Cool Old Lady: Early in the episode, Luna and Chunk stand for a red traffic light, with a car besides them driven by an old woman. When the woman notices Luna's singing, she promptly starts rocking along with her.
- A Day in the Limelight: For Luna. But each sibling gets their brief spotlight with their respective songs.
- Disney Acid Sequence: Several of the songs feature these elements, but "Luan's Laugh Parade" and "Get Pumped!" take the cake.
- Dramatic Thunder: Lucy's song starts with thunder and lightning.
- Empathic Weather: During the song "What Have I Done?", it rains.
- Establishing Character Moment: When Doug and Michelle first meet Luna in person, they rudely dismiss her and try to make her leave, but change their tune when she reveals herself as one of the finalists. This is likely to show that they dislike Rock And Roll music, preferring Pop.
- Executive Meddling: In-Universe example; Luna wins the contest and gets to perform on the show, only for Doug and Michelle to reinvent her entire persona.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: When Luna first encounters Michelle and Doug, the former believes she's in the wrong studio and is heading for So You Think You Can Head Bang instead. This is because the two of them are judging Luna by her rocker appearance, which, judged by them, does not fit the bubblegum pop song she submitted.
- Friend-or-Idol Decision: "Friend" being staying true to herself and her music that her own family accepts, "Idol" being selling herself just to be famous. Guess what Luna chooses?Doug: Do you know what you've just given up?!
Luna: Yeah, but I know what I'm keeping: the real Luna Loud! - Friendship Song: "Best Buds", a song sung by Lincoln and Clyde about their friendship, while they are playing a DanceDanceRevolution-style game.
- Girliness Upgrade: Luna gets a makeover that turns her into a pink-wearing, pink-haired popstar.
- Halfway Plot Switch: The first part has Luna trying to think of a song to write with help from having hallucinations of her siblings bursting into sudden musical moments in return. By the time we reach part 2, it changes to the predicament of Luna's persona being reinvented.
- Hallucinations:
- It is heavily implied that all the songs Luna hears her family sing are actually just in her head. At least Lana, Lola, and Lisa deny that they were singing, and Lisa theorizes that Luna's subconscious is trying to find the right sound of music for her song, hence why she hears music everywhere.
- Later, when her family is clearly shocked by Luna's change in appearance, Luna hallucinates her Mick Swagger poster talking to her.
- Hate Sink: Doug and Michelle are so awful, that it's evident that they were written to be as despicable as possible. Them trying to change Luna and threatening to disqualify her also shows what terrible people they are.
- Hold Up Your Score: During Lola's song, three of her stuffed toys are seen with score signs. They give her a 9 and two 10s.
- "I Am Great!" Song: Lola's song, "Glam Song", is about her beauty.
- "I Hate" Song: Lucy's gloomy ballad, "Song of Silence", is basically about her hatred of singing.
- Inner Thoughts, Outsider Puzzlement: In Luna's head, her siblings and parents are randomly bursting into song; in real life, they're just doing regular, run-of-the-mill family stuff. Lisa lampshades this saying her sibling's songs are actually aural hallucinations representing her uncertainty.
- Irony: Michelle and Doug refused to let Luna play her song as herself as they claimed it's not what everyone wants; however, when Luna ditched her Lulu getup and sang her original entry as herself, everyone loved it.
- "I Want" Song: Luna's second entry, "What Everybody Wants", is about one wanting a song for the whole world to love.
- Karma Houdini: Zigzagged. While Doug and Michelle receive no punishment for attempting to reinvent Luna's persona, they do receive some humiliation and have their attempt to sabotage Luna's "Play It Loud" performance get foiled mercilessly (and rather painfully), but that's pretty much it.
- Makeover Montage: The song "Changing Luna" shows Doug and Michelle giving Luna a complete makeover into what they believe an artist should look like.
- The Mirror Shows Your True Self: During the song "What Have I Done?", Luna stand before a mirror. Her reflection shows her regular appearance instead of her new Lulu persona.
- Musical Chores: Luna hallucinates Lana singing a toilet jam she unclogs the toilet.
- Musical Episode: This episode contains 14 songs sung by the Loud family, Clyde, and Doug + Michelle. The song "Play it Loud" is even sung twice, making for 15 musical numbers overall.
- Musical World Hypotheses: Of the Adaptation and All In Their Head types, given that the songs Luna hears from her family are just hallucinations conjured by her uncertainty, implied by Lisa. When we get to Part 2 however, Luna breaks out in a song of her own, as if it were Alternate Universe. Also, Luna's initial song and redone song are Diegetic.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Luna's song "What Have I Done". The emotion that was put into the singing really takes it home.
- Never Trust a Trailer: All promos for the episode focused on the songs, leaving out the fact it’s strictly focused on Luna.
- Pink Means Feminine: Luna's wardrobe in her "Lulu" persona consists of a pink dress and pink hair.
- Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: Lucy and Lynn start to argue before breaking out into a Big Ballof Violence.Lucy Loud: Look what you did to Edwin, you monster.Lynn Loud: What? You wanna go?
- Read the Fine Print: Lampshaded in the song "Changing Luna", when Doug urges her to sign a contract without reading between the lines.
- Rock Opera: The entire episode centers around Luna hallucinating every member of the Loud family singing several different types of music.
- Rouge Angles of Satin: Lynn spells "trophy" with an F instead of PH. Lisa Loud catches this.Lisa Loud: I think you spelt that wrong!
- Shout-Out:
- Doug and Michelle changing Luna's persona is similar in plot to the Victorious episode "Tori Goes Platinum", where the producers reinvent Tori's persona.
- America's Next Hitmaker seems to be a mashup of American Idol and America's Got Talent.
- When Doug and Michelle appear before Luna, Doug thinks she's attenting the auditions for So You Think You Can Head Bang.
- Silly Love Songs: "Lori2Leni", a ballad shared by Lori and Leni over the latter's text from Chaz and what she should do to please him.
- Single Stanza Song: The only songs in the episode that avert this are "Lori2Leni", "Best Thing Ever", "Changing Luna", "What Have I Done?" and "Play it Loud", the latter three of all which occur throughout Part 2.
- Take That!:
- The song "Best Thing Ever" is intended to poke fun at modern pop music nowadays, hence why it sounds so bland.
- On that note, the entire episode is a rather scathing jab at the pop music industry.
- Technicolor Science: Lisa's lab equipment.
- Tempting Fate: Luna hallucinates her Mick Swagger poster encouraging her and her new looks, telling her that she is still Luna Loud. Cue Gilligan Cut to Doug and Michelle telling Luna that, no, she is no longer Luna Loud, but Lulu.
- Toilet Humor: Lana sings about plumbing while trying to fix the toilet. When she flushes it, it creates a fountain of water, which she quickly redirects into the bathtub.
- Tomboy with a Girly Streak: Luna is generally a rock-loving tomboy, yet a more feminine image is invoked on her by having her dress up in incredibly glamorous clothing and use the stage name "Lulu".
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Briefly with Luna, who was acting rather cold towards her family for questioning if she really wants to be "Lulu". While she probably didn't want to admit it and cared more about being famous, she realize they're right when Doug and Michelle tried to make her something she's not.
- Triumphant Reprise: After Luna decides to ditch her Lulu persona, she plays a full version of "Play it Loud", the song she was originally intended to enter the concert with.
- Unwillingly Girly Tomboy: Luna is forced to change into a more glamorous and pop-oriented image, which she clearly isn't fond of.
- Villain Song: Or rather, Antagonist Song. "Changing Luna" involved Doug and Michelle changing Luna's personal appearance completely, and telling her to trust them.
- Wanting Is Better Than Having: Luna sends in her family-inspired song to be on America's Next Hitmaker and gets to perform for a record deal, only for the producers to completely change her act and persona, and realizes what she went through, so she purposefully disqualifies herself while simultaneously performing as the real her.
- Word Salad Lyrics: The lyrics for "Best Thing Ever", the song the Louds dance to on the radio, have rather bland-sounding lyrics for its nature.
- You Monster!: Said word for word by Lucy to Lynn after Lynn breaks the nose of her Edwin bust by smashing it on the ground like a baseball.
- Your Mind Makes It Real: When Luna starts worrying the song she wrote isn't a song the whole world will love, she starts hearing her family singing random songs out of nowhere in different genres, when they claim they didn't in real life. As Lisa points out, Luna is actually hallucinating her family singing due to her subconscious trying to find the right genre for her song.
