PREMIERE: Cory Liner "Puke/Visas" (Music Video)

by Stevie Logan

In last year’s excellent single “Puke”, Cory Liner sings “I wanna know what it feels like to be yours”. You think she’s addressing a person, an unidentified infatuation, but in the context of her new double music video, the lyrics take on a more abstract dimension.

She could be singing about the city, singing about yearning to experience life in the fullest, or singing about her youth itself. The video for “Puke” employs a home video style that follows Cory from rural Kentucky to the bright lights of Chicago as she performs live, parties with her friends, and plays guitar in the nude. Like a grunge-pop, Gen Z Lana del Rey, Cory uses her visuals to blend the real-life and the idealized.

The video for “Visas” takes that divide to the extreme, with the same home video footage intercut with darker, horror aesthetics . As the ominous electro of the song builds, Cory turns her head to reveal a glamorous, vibrant red visage that suggests a blood bath, a selling of the soul. She poses in the shadows, powerful and intimidating. But then we see her sitting in a diner in the same makeup, but dressed in a T-shirt with her arms wrapped around a friend. The shift in tone reminds us that Cory is in control of how we see her, and she’s in control of how she wants to spin her life into art.

“Puke” and “Visas” are featured on Cory’s new EP Blasphemy, out today on all streaming platforms.