This is a quick flip-through of the Music in She Oracle deck of 42 cards, and not a formal review. As the marketing copy for the deck notes, these cards are designed to guide you through life events and challenges, from the inspired perspective of music industry icons.

The art is by graphic designer and NYC-based art director Natalie Mertz, who is also the proprietor of Math and Medium, a graphic design and brand consulting firm. Music in She Oracle is published under Math and Medium.

Each card features the portrait of a musical artist in a pop art style, and corresponds to a particular archetype. For example, Bob Marley is The Peacemaker, Jimi Hendrix is The Alchemist, John Lennon is The Activist, Johnny Cash is The Straight Shooter, Ozzy Osbourne is The Madman, etc.

I love the diversity of representation here. By the way, yes, I may be an IP lawyer for my day job, but in the scope of this deck review blog post, I am not going to comment at all on potential right of publicity and personality rights issues that may or may not be relevant here. We are just going to ooh and ahh at the pretty pictures.

I don’t know much about this deck’s origins or even what year it was published in. I’m guessing it must be before K-pop became a global phenomenon, since there’s no Asian representation. Doh.

As for what one might do with such an oracle deck? I’m not sure. Conceivably, of course you can do oracle card readings with it. For me, it’s more like ooh and ahh, look at the stunning pop art of celebrity faces I recognize.

Also, I think revisions were made to the archetype titles on the cards themselves, but weren’t updated in the little white book, as you can see here with the card entry for Stevie Nicks.

And according to the guidebook, Card 39 features Tupac, The Poet, but then the card pictured on the left is Sheila E., The Heartbeat. Hmm, interesting.

Doh! I am an idiot and spoke too soon! The deck was published this year, in 2021! So it happened after the global K-pop phenomenon. Hmm.

Now, how I ended up with this deck. It’s kind of a crazy story. =) No, I didn’t purchase it myself. But here it is. I figured I’d post photos for a look-see blog post, then tuck the deck away in one of my storage chests of decks. I appreciate the concept and I think for its intended audience– music aficionados who aren’t necessarily cartomancers– this set of art cards will delight.