Super-mega popstar Charli xcx released her eighth full-length album, BRAT, on June 6th. In the midst of its promotion, she's been following the modern marketing guidebook for music artists: teasing snippets of singles before their release, rounding up TikToks of celebrities' first listens to the tracks, designing close to a dozen vinyl variants with an air of exclusivity to each one, and of course, gathering all the most iconic (and sometimes unexpected) players in pop music to feature in her music videos and songs. Even before the album's release, she had Robyn on a track and Julia Fox in her roster for the "360" music video, just to name a few of the star appearances.
Once the album came out, it was an immediate, unskippable hit all the way through. Pitchfork rated it an 8.6 with the label "Best New Album," and Anthony Fantano of @theneedledrop gave it a perfect ten - incredibly rare for his critical album reviews. Though all of the pre-released singles were reminiscent of Charli's usual work - high energy, hyperpop anthems about partying and being hot - BRAT as a whole presents a more intricate portrayal of her inner world and personal experiences. Gone is the image of the "hot girl, pop girl, rich girl" we were accustomed to from tracks like "Vroom Vroom" and "Speed Drive," as Charli lets us peer into the reality of perpetual self-doubt and insecurity that comes with fame and ego. With lyrics like "Why I wanna buy a gun? / Why I wanna shoot myself?" to "overanalyzing my face shape," and even an entire song dedicated to her intimate debate on whether or not to have children and what that decision would do to her career, she somehow touches on just about every modern woman's stream of consciousness, despite so many of us viewing her as nothing short of an untouchable icon.
Aside from these themes, you may be wondering why this is even a point of discussion for a wellness blog. At the end of the day, in a world full of genocide and economic crises and political polarization and environmental collapse, why should anyone care about a stupid pop album? Well...
This album is the antithesis of brainless pop. It is packed full of feminist wisdom beneath driving synths, autotune and heavy techno beats. As much as I love Sabrina Carpenter's "Espresso" for its simplicity and silliness, the depths of the feminine psyche that BRAT can reach, even if it comes from someone as high and mighty and privileged and famous as Charli, is unparalleled in the history of the billboard charts. I haven't even touched on the most iconic, most vulnerable, most human and healing release from this project yet, which, in my opinion, is the best pop song ever written. In fact, it is actively re-writing pop and feminist history.
The track "Girl, so confusing," garnered a lot of internet discourse when the album first dropped. The closest thing Charli has ever written to a diss-track targets a girl whose relationship to her is "awkward" and perhaps dishonest. She sees potential in their friendship and music collaboration but they "don't have much in common," and after so many failed attempts at getting together, Charli ponders whether they might actually hate each other. With some clues about who this person might be in real life - how they "have the same hair," and how the girl is "all about writing poems" - people have speculated about a number of artists who fit this description, with Lorde being the main culprit.
I have to take this opportunity to say that I have been the biggest fan of Lorde ever since "Royals" took over the radio in 2013 (just after Charli was featured on Icona Pop's "I Love It," which most would consider her first hit). I dressed up as her for Halloween my senior year because so many people also told me that I had the same hair, not to mention I loved her Tumblr-esque dark makeup and clothing. Though I wasn't completely in love with her sophomore album, the tracks "Supercut" and "Hard Feelings/Loveless" had me in a chokehold all summer. In 2022, I saw her by myself for the Solar Power tour, because despite my friends being fans, no one wanted to cough up 130 bucks for a show of an album that sounded a little too much like a Venus Gillette razor commercial.
No matter. To me, and to many, Lorde and Charli are equal in their stature as pop icons, if not representing opposing sides of the genre. Where Charli is celebrated as the ultimate example of the perfect queer-coded clubbing experience, dressed in the hottest outfits with our best friends, Lorde represents the girls who need to scream-cry on the floor of their bedroom after a heart-wrenching breakup, then wake up the next morning and treat themselves to a facial. We've all been both of these girls.
So Charli was spot on when she said in the original version of the song, "the internet would go crazy" if they ever made music together. Two weeks after the album was released, the news of "The girl, so confusing version with lorde" both validated our assumptions and sent us reeling. On the morning of its release, Charli posted what appears to have been a text conversation between the two of them, with Lorde's verse written out completely in a grey chat box. Charli's only response, in perfect Essexian fashion: "Fucking hell."
Where Charli confesses to us that she couldn't understand the dynamic of their relationship, whether it was genuine, or whether they even liked each other at all, Lorde candidly and honestly addresses each uncertainty with the quip that will go down in pop history: "Let's work it out on the remix." She couldn't believe that her flakiness had even had an impact on the club pop superstar. She admitted that even though she wanted things to work out, she was "so lost in [her] head" about her own body image, her own fame, her own rankings, that she would "always cancel last minute." The most poignant lines were those where she admitted to her fear of being photographed and revealed that she had tried to starve herself thinner for years, only to regain the lost weight later on. She had spent so long building a wall that others would see as standoffishness, even bitchiness, that she hadn't realized even someone as powerful and confident as Charli could be hurt by it.
In the pre-chorus, their voices join up: "It's you and me on the coin the industry loves to spend." Though it doesn't take much deep analysis to realize they're referring to the music industry, this line and their congruence in delivering it points toward the "industry" of women in general - the expectation to compete with and resent one another in nearly every category. While they focus on their image, their legacies as celebrities, and their physical appearances, they also speak for every non-famous woman and the relationship dynamics between them - the ones that have us judging friend groups, social lives, and how we care for our homes and families. It reminds me of how I've judged high school acquaintances' wedding registries and how they parent their kids. It brings me back to the painful stab of wondering whether my supposed friends were ever talking shit when I wasn't there. We've all been both of these girls: the one who does the damage and the one who feels the brunt of the impact.
Does it really have to take the raw lyricism and clever collaboration of two pop stars for us to see this universal dynamic of toxic female friendship for what it is? I think we all know better - I think we would like to believe we're better than that, and that perhaps we're advancing as society naturally does when these issues get discussed openly. But what this song provides does not stop at well-written lyrics that tell a different story deserving of more awareness. It goes so much deeper because it is literally a call and response; it is a problem and solution. It is an open, vulnerable conversation between two people we "common folk" would never imagine to have these kinds of relational worries. A celebrity with social anxiety? A beautiful, wealthy woman afraid of being hated? Two powerhouses experiencing an awkward dinner together? We've all been these girls!
And in the era of celebrity decline, where the allure of the rich and famous is starting to lose its sheen, perhaps this is just another carefully constructed power move in the constant battle for relevancy. Maybe this is just a really good song that has everyone feeling a type of way because a few iconic musicians finally feel real and touchable to us again. We love our parasocial relationships, and they love staying in the center of the media's attention. We're all getting what we want out of collab.
But here's where I think this is different: we're also floating along the same timeline as the Kendrick and Drake beef, where two men maliciously tear each other apart, doing their dirtiest work to come out on top - and the internet went crazy over this, too. Everyone (including me) overanalyzed those lyrics and came to their own conclusions, while more subconsciously feeding on all the dark, hidden, shadowy energy of those strangers' private lives. Meanwhile, the constant bad news pouring in from Palestine, or the recent European elections, or our own government's inaction regarding foreign affairs and environmental disaster on the horizon has us all crumpling in fear and anxiety, waiting for the next horrific headline to drop. This isn't going to cease anytime soon, but we humans are a little too unaware sometimes to recognize that adding hateful, harmful, charged and angry fuel to that existential fire is not going to do us any favors.
It's so confusing, sometimes, to be a girl. To be a person with a soft body and deep wells of emotional capacity that we try so desperately to shut off. In some spaces, we are getting the messaging that we are allowed to express vulnerability and feeling; that this okay again, that being feminine is actually a gift that the world needs. Consciously, I believe it. But after hundreds of years and several generations of this energy being forcibly stifled and shut down, or otherwise faced with condemnations of hysteria and witchcraft followed by punishment in the form of isolation, violence, rape, abuse, mockery, you name it...the pain body is huge. It lives in our bones. It will take generations to come for the pain to subside and heal. Being a girl means choosing between keeping the emotional depths hidden away and numbed out to avoid the most pain, or connecting to the water supply and letting it absolutely blast you from time to time. The rage and hatred we see in the world is felt to the fullest degree. We open to all of it. Or we suppress it. We get to choose - neither option is easy.
This Charli and Lorde collab is a public-facing opening to feminine vulnerability. It is the deep conflict we all feel, personified in a pop hit. We could be shaking ass in the club and downing tequila shots to it, or we could be crying in the car with our foreheads on the steering wheel - somehow it's a song fit for both settings. Either way, though it may not be the first song in history to explore the dynamics of a tricky female friendship, it is certainly the one that forces us to think long and hard about our own relationships to other women. Have I been the flaky one? Have I given anyone the impression that I don't want to be seen in pictures with them? Do I walk like a bitch?
Equally as painful as the emotional suppression we've been forced to comply with over the many years is the confrontation of other women who we've hurt or been hurt by. The collective rejoining of feminine beings is one that feels so special and magical, and yet so strange and foreign, because there is still the echo of assumed nefarious behavior when we join together. It feels so right, but still just a little bit wrong - like there's supposed to be some sort of authority figure watching over our actions. "Girl, so confusing" has provided a space where this doesn't matter, at all, not even for a second. This is a space for feminine repair - a few minutes of time when we get to send a little love inward, toward our ancient wounded feminine energy, and a little love outward, toward every girl who has ever doubted female friendship.
I choose to believe that we will continue on in our collective mission for repair in all the spaces we may occupy, whether it's the club, or the office, or the kitchen, or the bedroom, or the garden. This song is already such a fantastic source of healing that I imagine its ripple effect while carry on into future musical endeavors and into the culture. It is actively rewiring the capacity for girls to confidently join up and ride for one another.
Just know, I'd ride for you, too.
Comments