by Dan O

Under two minutes long, an anti-banger that holds me in the palm of its hand each time it plays.

It started on Saturday Night Live in December 2014 for me. She performed Break The Rules with a dizzying array of deep pelvic thrusts. At first I was jarred by it, confused, but as the performance continued I couldn’t help but respect the commitment. How the thrusts turned into Degeneration X crotch chops at one point…I needed to listen to this album. My son was at a perfect point for Break The Rules so the album Sucker became a mainstay and Charli became one of my favorite songwriters in the world. She didn’t just make great albums, she dropped loose gems that never made it to albums that banged harder than any single. She dropped an earwig jam they would use in the big chase scene of a movie and would lead the soundtrack.

Charli can craft a song the radio will eat up…but she always felt askew in that environment. She made no bones about being day drunk at the beach and the potentially she would burp at you if you came up to bother her. I love that about her. The 2016 EP with SOPHIE Vroom Vroom got a 4.5 in Pitchfork and I gave the Shannon Sharpe and kept banging it for years.

This is all lead in to say her new album BRAT packs all the punch and personality I love in her music but Charli is ever evolving; sometimes in the direct architecture of the music, sometimes in tones. I wasn’t ready for track four.

Under two minutes long, an anti-banger that holds me in the palm of its hand each time it plays. The song nails what BRAT is about, that feeling when your important enough to screw up and feel the impact but not important enough to live in fearlessness. I hate when the song cuts off, I play it again. “I don’t feel like nothing special. I snag my tights out on the lawn chair. I guess I’m a mess and play the role.” Something about snagging the tights, its such a small detail but its exactly the kind of thing we beat ourselves up about. We live lives full of stupid mistakes that gnaw at us. Explaining it feels useless since when she wails that she goes so cold, that she doesn’t know if she belongs here anymore…you’ll feel my explanation in the delivery of the words.

Think of the XCX experience as a quilt of songs stitched together. This one is the center of it. I’ll think of it first because having the steel nerves to show this to the world and let them say what they will is generational. Charli XCX is a generational talent. I hope this song gives her solace, sometimes admitting really does free up space in your head. Hopefully, it can do that for people across the world.