Bumpin' That

Dial 999, it's a good time

Last week’s post on Chappell Roan yielded a comment from M’Learned Friend Adam Ford:

That was very good. I myself have been binging BRAT for a few months now. Getting tips on killer pop choons from one’s own daughter is a special thrill… So what's your favourite iteration of BRAT so far? Esther is a big fan of "also still the same", but I am a 'classicist', although i do like some of the new tracks on "...so it's not". Top three off the top of my head: 360, Apple and Talk talk. Bangers all.

I mentioned that I had been absolutely caning two albums. BRAT by Charli XCX is the other one. I don’t really differentiate between the remix vs original albums. Certain tracks do stand out though.

Apple is a perfect pop song. Guess is delirious, daft fun.

I think about it all the time has no artifice, it’s just someone’s desires and anxieties naked in front on you, writhing like a fish caught fresh from the ocean: She's a radiant mother, and he's a bеautiful father / And now they both know thesе things that I don't.

The one I listen to the most frequently is 365. In part because it offers some seriously aggro techno for a pop song. But also because it captures something about hedonism - why it’s great in the short term but offers diminishing returns. It is the flipside of I think about it all the time. Ms XCX is that bit older than Ms Roan (30s rather than 20s). It almost reminds me of A Certain Ratio’s All Night Party, although it doesn’t go full nightmare. 365 is not quite a denunciation of partying but it is definitely not a full-throated defense of it either. Just do it on repeat.

A party that never ends is no kind of party at all.