(Checks score) Checks out.
[Video]
[6.38]
Wayne Weizhen Zhang: “As you already know, I am an iconic figure in the arts, and have helped expand the landscape of popular music over the last decade by seamlessly traversing the underground and mainstream with my output,” ends Charli’s press release for “Good Ones.” Edicts like this are based in self-mythology, but not without merit in Charli’s case. For all of the mediocre bubblegum pop from Sucker, oeuvres like Pop 2, Charli, and How I’m Feeling Now have engendered pop’s fantabulous de- and re-construction. “Good Ones” sees Charli shedding her hyper-pop, feature-heavy exoskeleton in favor of what she calls “ultimate pop music.” Propelled by wobbly, manic synths, detailing a series of toxic relationships, and drenched with hook after sticky hook, the track is the closest that Charli has come to truly an imperial pop star moment. Not quite iconic, but certainly more than just a good one.
[8]
Nortey Dowuona: I guess the future is here, y’all. Wassup, old Swedes?
[8]
Alfred Soto: Mmm fat sequencer lines hit the spot. But where’s the rest of the song? I need more than Charli’s grisly falsetto.
[4]
Tobi Tella: I’d rather a commitment to full sellout, rather than another half-hearted Splenda version of hyperpop, and this certainly fits the bill. Has the vocal melody been done already? Probably. Will that stop me from constant replaying, like a gay Odysseus lured in by the Top 40 sirens? Absolutely not.
[7]
Austin Nguyen: I’m hoping, for my own sanity, that this isn’t the True Romance 2021 Charli promised, but part of some larger Frank Ocean-esque scheme to release two albums for the sake of contractual obligation. After all, the producer isn’t Ariel Rechtshaid of static-shuddering, neon-strobe glory, but Oscar Holter of “Blinding Lights” fame. Which makes sense — this isn’t so much a “Stay Away” sequel as it is a blatant rip-off of “Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)” that tries to strut like “Womanizer,” but just sort of… briskly walks, like a Great British Bake Off contestant who forgot their pie in the oven: a bit sweet, mainly dry.
[5]
Harlan Talib Ockey: It’s God’s gift to any playlist based on Wall-Shaking Club Bangers, but I can’t imagine a scenario where I’d think to open Spotify and type “charli xcx good ones” into the search bar. The main synth line and vocal hook are far too generic to randomly stab me in the hippocampus at the grocery store, with the former immediately morphing into “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” whenever I try to call it up. Even its spectacular momentum is sustained mainly by its brevity. Lastly, I assume someone else will discuss the Jekyll-and-Hyde-ness of Charli’s career in more detail, but man, is it jarring to see this drop only a year after “Enemy.”
[5]
Katherine St Asaph: Charli finally materializes from the hyper-quasi-semi-pop cloud and makes corporeal music again. Or maybe more accurately, she’s returned to her roots, i.e., MySpace pop at the exact moment it became The Fame. It’s still not True Romance, but at least it’s a nostalgia cycle I can get behind. What’s Alice Chater up to lately?
[7]
Leah Isobel: Charli has spent her career waffling between genuine shots at big pop stardom and oddball plays for artistic respect — a good way to appeal to RYM bros and gay people who use Twitter, demographics who love to denigrate pop music by imagining that their favorite stars are somehow “elevating” or “subverting” it, but not a good way to actually achieve her ambitions. As far as I can tell, this inconsistency came from a deep-rooted ambivalence towards what being a pop star (not just a “popstar”) might mean about her as a person. If she really committed to her love for pop, if she accepted her status in the industry, would she be a sucker? Would she lose it all, would she fuck it up? “Good Ones” finds her on the other side of the divide, looking back at her past doubts. She smiles and nods — yes, she would do all that and more. And she’d do it again. She’s not a hipster icon, not a subversive anarchist, not the anti-pop goddess her cult has wanted her to be. She’s not magically separate from the industry that she’s worked in for a decade. She’s a fucking pop star. It’s kind of funny, though, that the pop star she wants to be is Tik Tok Natalia Kills.
[7]