The following review was handed in by the author at 5am as a voice message, together with a note, asking our editor to please have the audio transcribed and edited, citing the delayed ability to listen to the full album as making the process of handing in a proper review impossible.
Our editor has chosen to do none of this, as his time is valuable, and instead present the transcribed voicenote unedited, for your full enjoyment.
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Hey Bestie. Been a while. Yeah I know, this is kind of out of nowhere, but look – I’ve finally got the new Charli XCX record, but I fell asleep and it took me a while to get myself together and really listen to it a few times, take notes, the whole process. But I feel really banged up and just can’t compile it properly in written form. So, given that you always said how much you liked my writing and valued my opinions, and that you like Charli, I thought I will just… send you this voice message with my thoughts on it, and then I’ll hand that over to our editor, so he can have some fun with editing it down into a proper form. [The hell I will! This is much more fun! – Ed.]
I know, it’s probably odd that I rushed to pick up this album, because I was not the biggest fan of Brat. I think we agreed on that: it goes really hard – at times really really hard – but it also felt like Charli was both holding back and presenting this picture of herself that was a perfectly packaged sales pitch to the mainstream, whatever the latter is nowadays. It was like a branded product, and I think Charli was very conscious of that, with the packaging and design aspect to the album. It’s not How I’m Feeling Now, is what I’m saying. It isn’t abrasive or uncanny, which I always felt was such a defining feature of her persona.
But Wuthering Heights drew me back in, partially because it showed that she really developed as a composer and writer. She manages to conjure some very raw emotional moments, and pairs them with these intricate structures that feel like a leap in terms of her musicianship. But also, and I think that’s more important, I lately can really identify with Charli on some level.
There’s a chameleonic aspect to her that only revealed itself with Brat. It’s not quite Bowie yet, but she is very conscious of how she presents herself, how she uses fashion and spectacle to mold herself, which I feel related to my own approach of those elements.
There’s more. Let’s face it: Charli is really full of shit, which – hey, I am too. And she’s really aware of that! Nowadays she seeks a sense of self-deprecating irony that is really intoxicating. She can deliver a song that feels like she just slapped it together in five minutes, but then delivers it with this cheeky bravado that is just immaculate. She basically drops a song that feels like it’s a lazy, slapdash, effortless, maybe even dumb track. But within that Russian doll is this core of self-awareness, this criticism and even deep sadness. It’s like she abandons what would be the simplest pop tune by injecting it with melancholia, but then also this big grin at the audience, because she is ultimately ahead of them. She sells herself as this party girl that will call everyone the c-word and do cocaine with people in Paris and is just walking chaos, but it’s a facet behind which rests this deeply honest and clever individual. Her transgressions are meaningful, because they come from an intelligent and reflected place, even tho she manages to do her best to hide that awareness at every turn.
She’s also really hot, which, you know, I am too… But seriously, doing the video to “Wink Wink” and just masturbating on a meadow and going ‘wet T-shirt’: there’s a fearless brevity to her act. And all these elements I mentioned, so maybe consistently diverse characters, constantly collide, without ever being too poisoned by irony, because she ultimately is that person, because this is her art.
[silence]
Sorry for that break, a rainbow appeared here, just now as I said that. It’s quite beautiful… OK, so Music, Fashion, Film works like one gradual movement, with the topics and images lined like pearls on a string, each song progressing the narrative like chapters in a book.
Charli came in hot, proclaiming “the dancehall is dead” on “Rock Music”. Which is again a reflection on the melancholia I mentioned: she paints this picture of the girl that never sleeps, this indie sleaze phantasm that VICE magazine somehow conjured out of its death throes. But that character is linked inextricably to the death of the party. Which is quite a British motif – Blur have a song titled just that, and Pulp returned to this image recurrently. You find that darkness lurking on the sidelines, when her company turns incestuous, and when she’s hurting her neck from banging her head. “But it’s the only way to feel somеthing / Hurt yourself / Yeah, maybe jump off the stage / I hope they catch you today / But if they don’t, it’s okay”. She goes so in depth with this imagery, just to then come out and claim this wouldn’t be a rock album. Which is so preposterous, because she’s putting on this rock star drag act in a way that is so transparently gothic, that maybe only Richey Edwards is in the same league. Rock music is like a thesis to her, with how the word is fragmented into this constant stutter, this state of cosmetic disturbance. Ugh, it’s great!
And I think that’s also how the already iconic cover came together. John Cale, Marc Jacobs and Martin Scorsese are arranged like these victorian poets here, who have come together like the characters in Ken Russell’s “Gothic”, waiting on a shot of laudanum – only that the three are so deeply associated with New York, and only Cale is British. There’s also that ashtray, which I read as a memento mori motif. More on that later, too, but especially the discarded cigarettes in the “Rock Music” video make me suspicious that Charli relates the process of a cigarette being smoked to her own mortality, and the fleeting nature of fame. Because a cigarette is consumed by flames, but inevitable leaves behind this disgusting, toxic bud, this plastic corpse of a filter that is just unconsumable trash. And besides that: there’s just ashes. Which we all turn into eventually.
The chorus of “SS26” furthers that gothic impression: “When the world is gonna end, no hope for any of it / Yeah, we’re walkin’ on a runway that goes straight to hell / Nothing’s gonna save us, not music, fashion or film”. I was wondering how Charli would confront this utter insanity that followed ‘Brat summer’, all that genocide and fascism, and then in the first verse she enters right away with “Cigarettes”. And tells people to put them out. It’s so diabolically smart to connect these images that pop culture has inextricably linked with her, and expand on them. She is able to acknowledge, in a very meta way, how fascism is seeping through the cracks of everything, and then returns with this caustic irony that is so fucking wonderful about her: “Think my politics could work as a press strategy / And my heritage could give me quite thе USP / Can’t hide the fact I’d rather takе the easy road / Yeah, I think I’ll be alright if I look good in the clothes”. That’s not even her taking the piss, it’s a really bleak assessment of how privilege and class functions in the face of pretty harrowing violence. The constant babbling about migrants and the horrid actions of ICE echo differently to a brown woman like Charli. She reflects on all that brutality with the brutal revelation of Weimar-era cynicism.
And then “Card Declined” turns this image on its head, using tech-grunge guitars to chart the consumerism of the Epstein-class. The empty pain of an inner void, where that “bought smile” she mentions comes from, is constant. And then she does another somersault and injects a second part just as the song ends, returning to the motif of absence from “So I”. That might seem like a reach, but considering that SOPHIE’s “Faceshopping” confronted how we use money to mould ourselves through endless consumption, there’s definitely an intended reference here. SOPHIE is gone, after all these songs she wrote about the thin membrane between artifice and authenticity.
And then that membrane is confronted in “Camera”, where Charli explains her newfound love for the process of acting as a means to reach a higher form of authenticity. As a filmmaker, of course I relate – a friend actually just last month went into physical shock the day after finishing his proper debut feature! Which I also wanted to tell you… But here, this is the entire point people missed: that process of filmmaking takes from you! The video to “Camera” presents acting as this really arduous process of constant failure, where the captured moment, that is supposed to be eternal, is second to this vulgar experience of nervous breakdown and anger and phoniness. And in that, Charli finds comfort, and I think all of us that try to make movies do – here, I need to read you the last part in full: “I can be anything that I wanna be / And I can feel the things I don’t normally feel / Yeah, I can finally be totally honest / […] I’m always craving an experience that feels dangerous / And maybe this is it, maybe it’s what I need / ‘Cause it’s the only way to feel like I’m not actually me”.
Maybe you’ve seen that Charli reposted a fan that pointed out how much of Charli’s lyrics are about how she tries to run away from herself. Maybe we all do, but I think it, once again, aligns with how Gothic literature uses monsters as a foil for trauma, how in Gothic literature, everything is an echo from the past. There’s this recurring image in those stories, of protagonists living in long abandoned mansions of past glories, engaging in quasi – or actual – incestuous relations in the hopes to return to some sort of golden age of wealth and prosperity. And then you don’t even need to go as far as Del Toro’s Crimson Peak, because there’s a relation to how Trump decks out the White House in gold. It’s a constant echo of the past that just… infuses the present and mutates it into ghoulish forms.
Charli even becomes that echo in “2007”. It’s one of the most bare bones tracks, by which it also inevitably is a little weaker. It connects with how weird it is how we now can use social media to wrestle those Warholian ’15 minutes of fame’ from the world. But what’s interesting here is how she uses the image of herself, singing songs in her bedroom, and links that idea of the bedroom to sexual conquest – “I can take you to heaven like it’s 2007” – but then also brings in this image of lost innocence, citing MGMT’s “Kids”, which was released that year. I think most people that weren’t around in 2007 lack the understanding how psychedelic and colourful that year was, with Deerhunter and Animal Collective and Liars and MGMT on rotation.
And then Charli rejects this idea of innocence with “I’m Afraid”, which is sort of painful for me to listen to, because she confronts this idea of marital bliss as a form of cosmic rejection: “I’m a wife, I’m a kid / I’m destroyed, I’m a bitch / I’m too drunk, I can’t sleep / I can’t feel, I’m afraid / I’m afraid, I’m afraid / I’m nothing without him / What if I ruin it?” Her repeating “take the ring, take the ring” brings up this image of the one ring in Tolkien’s epic, a comparison I don’t think I’ve seen before. Marriage is supposed to be the ultimate bliss and power move for anybody, just like the ring of Tolkien is meant to give ultimate power. But then once you have the ring, there’s just delusion and mania: “All this pain makes me believe / I’m a better artist now / An excuse I tell myself / To act selfishly”.
One interesting reading of Tolkien that I always appreciated is that the ring isn’t so much evil, but that the power its possession brings turns out the worst in people. Given that I am a cancer sun, this is something I never consciously confronted about that dreaded topic romance. Leos usually very much pair their glowing presence with insecurities they overplay, but Charli is the exception to the rule in that they seem unwilling to pretend – she openly asks “what if my love – what if I – am too much?”, all while these gothic strings and shrill guitars bring a hint of 90s anxiety and Courtney Love’s Hole.
I think “Yeah” – which is maybe the weakest song here – was chosen as a sort of palette cleanser then, because its signature riff and simplistic mantra of “I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna” and “You don’t wanna, you don’t wanna” is very grunge, very alternative. It’s like the parody of a dumb rock song, ca. 1997, but in the context of its predecessor it feels like a means of wiping away the anxiety with corporeal force, which “Wink Wink” then picks up.
I don’t know if it hit for you, but for me, “I used to lick cream off strawberries in the summer / And maybe I fucked your dad” is likely the best opening line to a song this year. The song has already been so thoroughly analysed that I don’t even know if I can add anything. But I think you – or anyone that knows me – can figure out why I love this play with the dichotomy of rejecting the bad girl while rubbing your ass on a glass pane. It’s also just spectacular how the video manages to combine performed sex appeal with this rustic disruption of bawdy rural primitivism.
And obviously Charli is still a bad girl and – I don’t even know where to go with this next one, because “Persona” is this brilliant Medusa’s head of a song. So on one hand, the title refers to the personas of pop stars and their performative niceness with each other and to the public – that character which Charlie constantly volleys as a weapon to contrast her confessional lyrics. But then it is also a reference to Ingmar Bergman’s movie. Specifically, to this image of the two women’s heads being combined with each other. There’s many images throughout the film that suggest this movement, that overlays the two women on top of each other in this confrontative collision. And there’s more than just a suggestion of erotic, sexual tension between them.
And this is where Charli plunges her dagger in: “Persona” is her response to Taylor Swift’s “Actually Romantic”. And… holy shit. I know you’ve probably listened to it by the time you’re reading this, but my jaw hit the floor when I heard it earlier today. This is quite literally Charli’s “Not Like Us”! I mean, yeah, Taylor’s attempt at a diss already drew much ridicule, but I couldn’t have foreseen Charli outclassing her this badly! Every line is so clinically, savagely precise, referencing the prior track just vaguely enough to suggest ignorance thereof, all while delivering gut punch after gut punch! “Sometimes I wonder if you realise the way you come across / It’s kind of crazy / Wish you could be honest about your internal dialogue / It wouldn’t faze me […] / Every day you’re suffering / But you say you’re doing fine / I love the stories you tell / But I can tell when you lie”.
It’s so brutal that I could probably just record an entire isolated voice message on every single line and pick apart where it’s going. Just… brilliant writing that is subtle and clever, delivered with arrogance, irony and self deprecation. My favourite is probably: “I gotta say, I do respect the commitment to the bit / Now, that’s persona / We’re both under the influence of life imitating art / And we both know it”. Anyone who hasn’t seen Bergman’s Persona will likely try to deduce what the “life imitating art” reference means, missing that Charli points to the image of the famous actress who can’t get a word out on stage, is locked into a loveless relationship and unable to find compassion for her son, contrasted by the bubbly and life affirming young nurse – it’s just brilliant writing!
Especially because “Persona” takes this idea Taylor presented – that Charli wrote a song about her because she’s actually in love with her – and twists it to its natural conclusion, that this was an attempt to generate a personal relationship! This odd invocation in “Actually Romantic”, where Taylor – after her team famously repudiated ‘the gaylor article’ – dropped that line about it making her wet… which is in line with the erotic tension in the movie Persona… is twisted by Charli with this shit eating smirk of just volleying it right back: “I know you’re performing, I know that you’re hurting / So you try to hide it when you see me coming / Don’t wanna confront it, I’m scared I’m annoying / You call me your best friend, I secretly love it”. Flawless! Especially with the double entendre of Charli “coming”, which – again – I think most people might miss! Which is yet another layer: Persona is a famously uncrackable puzzle box, where there’s dozens of theories as to what the film is actually about and who these two women are. And through that, Charli can just dismiss any interpretation hurled her way. “What? No, nooo, I would never!”
And then this nemesis-figure is confronted with an actual best friend in “Magic Metal Montana”, where Charli pays homage to long time collaborator A.G. Cook, with the same earnest and passionate commitment. I love that the composition is essentially a classic The Strokes instrumental, ca. “Hard to Explain”. I think in terms of musicianship, it’s the cleverest composition here, with the breakdown during the chorus, also the tasteful vocoder that nods to Julian Casablancas’ latest obsession. It’s such a cool track, once more using artistic elements for meta narration.
And then that sentiment bleeds into the last track, which is another case of an essay I could write just about this one song! “No One Lasts Forever” dances around this night in Paris, where Charli had a philosophical conversation about the nature of life and existentialism, probably while high, reflecting how our ego is both our best friend and biggest enemy. She lists how people dismiss her as rude and irresponsible, and make fun of her image as drug chugging party girl, and then concludes: “That’s why I’m not scared of anyone / ‘Cause nothing’s gonna last forever / But you need to discover that feeling / Of the crushing highs and lows of ego / Where one minute you know you’re the worst / And the next minute you know you’re better / Than everyone in the room / But know that nothing’s gonna last forever”.
So the song presents itself as this bubbly, sapphire synth-pop tune with existentialist chorus, and it’s all fun and games until it suddenly enters this final spiral, which is a recording of a conversation between, as everybody knows, my favourite living filmmaker – David Cronenberg – and Charli, where Cronenberg recounts this story of how he collapsed on a sidewalk near his house, and how conscious he was in that moment, reflecting on the fact that he might be dying right there! “As I was lying there on the sidewalk, I did not think about art at all / I– I thought about people, I thought about life”. I love how raspy and withered his voice is here, while Charli’s is boosted into this inaudible, distorted hum that’s totally depersonalised.
There’s a lot of why this section is hitting me hard. I mean, you know, about 2023 and such. We artists have two sets of parents – our actual parents and the artists who sort of shape and accompany and inspire us; sort of parents to our spiritual and unconscious identity of creation. So, hearing the hoarse voice of Cronenberg, I can’t but think of my father and how he is now getting older, and the stuff that happened a few years ago. There’s this line about how he collapsed near his house, and how that was oddly comforting to him, how, even though it didn’t seem to matter, it does… Which also makes me think of my own mortality, with how my health has been recently, and also yours… It just, yeah, it’s… not… it’s quite emotional. Because Charli asks him if he thought about art and his work and such – which, again, I think there’s not a single Cronenberg I don’t totally love! Here, let me… these final lines: “It can turn out that, yes, some artists have created art that has really survived thousands of years / And that’s fantastic, but experientially, for them / They are dead, they are gone, they are not experiencing that / These are true things and thank goodness for them / I– I– I really feel, um, and you hear me assuring you that oblivion is freedom.”
And then it just repeats this rhythmic mantra, of him saying “They are dead, they are gone, no one lasts forever”, and the song almost enters this Industrial tone. It really transgresses what Charli has done in work before. Here’s this cheeky British Kobold, who loves to drink and party and do lines, and she reflects on how this solar drive, this iridescent Leo energy, is ultimately this quest, this drive against death! And Cronenberg’s voice becomes this overlaid, echoing moment of inescapable body horror, pierced by distorted sounds of fuzzy noise. I wonder if somewhere, Charli has a hidden Merzbow-esque version of this track, which just explodes into minutes of static harsh noise…
And it returns right to this image of the cigarette and how we ourselves are kind of… – OK this sounds dumb, so Rob, please find a better metaphor [The hell I will! – Ed.] – but umh… we kind of are all cosmic cigarettes. We are set alight and we burn bright and there’s this addictive smoke we blow into the ether, and maybe there is joy and maybe also burning pain and it’s all over, before it’s even begun, and we are just left as anonymous ash and carcass. And I don’t know… I guess it made me think of my parents getting older, and us getting older, and that I miss a lot of things.
But that’s what’s beautiful about life, isn’t it? This weird understanding that we are all locked into that. That when we collapse on the pavement, there’s always a home close to us… I guess. So yeah, it’s just… so much more than what I expected from a pop album! Easy 88%, maybe as a joke to how everything is a moebius strip. So… that’s where this will have to end, if this is even still recording… Yeah, seems to be… So yeah, call while you still can, is, I guess, the message. Or how Ariana said, break up with your boyfriend cause I’m bored, or something. I really hope somebody edits that out. OK, until the next time. Goodbye.
88%
