Welcome to FRONTSEAT! This newsletter is an ongoing commentary on pop music, pop culture, and, oftentimes, a real-time unraveling of my own psyche. If you find yourself enjoying this, I would love if you sent it to someone you think would, too!
POP MUSIC EMERGENCY: CHARLI XCX IS COMING
The number one angel herself is back with a new era next month. If you care about me even the smallest little bit, then you should pre-save her song ‘Good Ones,’ the lead single from the next album!
It’s been a little while since Charli XCX, my favorite person on earth, announced new music. Last time around, it was the beginning of the pandemic, and she put out how i’m feeling now, an album that she made in a matter of weeks which featured ‘party4u’ and ‘anthems,’ two songs that could at any point be swapped in for our national anthem and I wouldn’t bat an eye. Before COVID-19, she was supposedly planning on putting out a Janet Jackson-inspired album for fall 2020, and HIFN wasn’t intended to exist for public consumption at all. We’re on a different track now, though, baby!
This next album, I think, is going to catapult her back into the cultural conscience. It’s not like she ever LEFT our minds, but since her early days, she’s mostly kept a low profile in the mainstream.
Charli XCX has a massive cult following (myself included xo), and it wasn’t that long ago that she was on SNL performing ‘Fancy’ in a schoolgirl costume. She has had her major commercial moments, like ‘I Love It’ with Icona Pop and ‘Boom Clap.’ Her songwriting pen has given artists like Selena Gomez and Camila Cabello and Shawn Mendes huge hits. She’s friends with all the pop girls (and Jordan Firstman, apparently, who used his evil gay magic to somehow assemble a cast including Charli, Dua Lipa, Tove Lo, Caroline Polachek, Kim Petras and more for his birthday party last month in LA). Meanwhile, she’s been the face of the growing hyperpop subgenre and scene since the Vroom Vroom EP, riding the waves of production geniuses like A.G. Cook and the late SOPHIE. Moreover, she’s built a fan base that is probably synonymous with every follower of this meme account.
My draw to Charli is her versatility and ability to exist as this liminal celebrity — she can open for Taylor Swift’s Reputation Tour, while also hosting a live DJ set on Grindr’s Instagram account and being best friends with Benito Skinner and his sexy boyfriend. She can write fucking ‘Señorita,’ to everyone’s dismay (while it was still a global hit), and then also be made into a meme because a fan at her meet-and-greet had her autograph an enema. She is always toeing the lines of fame and notoriety, a key cultural influence in the internet age, all the while making the bulk of her music for a small subset of the public.
This next era, though, is where she pulls it all together and does it big. I predicted this on the beautiful website Twitter a few months ago. She’s been blowing up on TikTok. Her posts around this next release combine three incredible themes: 1) 80s-inspired 2) demons/Hell and 3) the concept of fame. It’s giving Gaga, for a pandemic-ridden 2021. ‘The higher the hair the closer to hell,’ she tweeted in regards to the cover art for ‘Good Ones.’ To which I say, slay yes mama!
Why is it that I want her to have a massive mainstream moment? I don’t think it would be all that exciting to brag to my hetero peers about how I’ve been stanning her all along (I sort of do that already). Methinks it is just a dream collab for me — an indie pop legend doing pop that is made for mass listenership. I’d have a similar reaction to Carly Rae Jepsen doing something with a massive budget — further than the money behind it, from the marketing of it so far, though, it just feels like Charli’s leaning into being an icon for icon’s sake. She wants to be in the limelight and have her music chart and maybe pull in a big feature or two; the whole shebang. Will it cost some authenticity? Probs! But it’s an indulgence I am craving, and one I think we are going to get.
PERSONAL CORNER: I WAS NEARLY DEFEATED BY DENTAL FLOSS
I almost started to cry sitting at a coffee shop Tuesday morning. (Boring! This has been done before! Get new material! — these are things you’re probably yelling rn.) I was ordering floss online and also looking for somewhere to buy Japanese Breakfast’s (Michelle Zauner’s) book when I realized I have been out of floss for almost a week, and instead of simply walking a block to the nearest convenience store, I instead felt I only had the energy to order it online. Like, physically walking a few minutes to a store and purchasing floss seemed so arduous a task that I decided I’d rather order it online, and it still took me a week to actually make the purchase. Which is pretty lame and sad!
Unfortunately, it is those little stupid things that can absolutely break me with a swiftness. Am I depressed, or just lazy? Is my life hard, or am I dodging accountability at every turn? What is the definition of self-sufficient, because surely I don’t fit the bill? These are the existential questions that I’ve unearthed, mostly because of dental floss.
All I can say is that it may be a few hours, it may be a few days, it may be longer, but eventually, it gets a little easier to do those tasks that at one point seem wholly impossible.
THREE RANDOM SONGS WHERE THE GIRLS REALLY GO OFF
Let It Burn - Jazmine Sullivan
If you don’t already know Jazmine Sullivan and her voice, it’s time to get educated! Her most recent project was great, but this song from 2015 goes dumb stupid crazy hard.
Girl - Maren Morris
Okay, I’m a country girl!!! Maren Morris is one of those country artists who I just decided I am allowed to listen to, and I’m glad, because what she goes on this song is completely off.
Reminders - Mariah The Scientist
I do not know much about Mariah The Scientist, but god damn does she start this song with an astounding vocal performance that simply does not let up for the entire track.
SOMETHING THAT SHOULD BE WAY EASIER TO DO
Putting a fitted sheet on a bed
SOMEONE I THOUGHT WE WOULD BE OVER BY NOW
Caroline Calloway.
Yes, she is on TikTok, which, haven’t we had enough iterations of her notoriety? What layer of irony/post-irony/post-post-irony are we wading through at this point? I’m asleep.
READ THIS
‘Summer, Glorious Summer! Rethinking the Friendship Plot’ by B.D. McClay
This is an interesting read on the concept of friendship, particularly as it has informed American literature over the course of history, and the importance (or lack thereof) we place on friendship as a society. I promise you it is interesting! I hate reading and I liked this! Here’s my favorite excerpt from the piece:
When you are younger, your friends are your present and your imagined future. When you and your friends begin to develop into different people, it’s painful. Not everyone is lucky enough to have the kinds of friendships that have stayed firm simply through knowing one another for decades and staying nearby, as opposed to the mixture of genuine affection, interest sharing, and professional advancement that characterizes many adult friendships. For many these early friendships end in painful rifts and silence. All the great dramas of my own adolescence were friendships. It seemed unlikely then that romance had any intimacy or pain that could compare. It still does.
A SONG SO SAD YOU’LL THROW UP
Lonely - Noah Cyrus
A SONG SO DANCE-Y YOU’LL THROW ASS
Don’t Wait Up - Shakira
AN EMBARRÁZZING MOMENT RECENTLY
Readers of last week’s issue of FRONTSEAT know that I recently was put on to Nana Lourdes, a pop singer from Portugal. Her song ‘Kenny’ has one of the most cathartic choruses you’ll ever hear, and I felt compelled to tell her that. I was AGHAST that she has less than 1,000 followers on Instagram despite having nearly 60,000 monthly listeners on Spotify and several songs with streams in the six-digits.
Then I was like, wait, she will definitely see my DM! And she did see it, and IDK, yes I was being hyperbolic as I tend to be, but I felt embarrázzed by her reply. See for yourself:
Okay, it’s not that bad, but for some reason her nonchalance about her own song has given me second-hand embarrassment, in addition to the existing embarrassment of being such an unadulterated simp in her DMs. Anyways, maybe don’t be a ravenous fan in a burgeoning artist’s DMs!