When Charli XCX dropped her sixth studio album, Brat, on June 7, the internet was immediately set ablaze. While plenty of songs prompted discourse—“360,” with its flock of It girls; “I think about it all the time,” with its reflections on the weirdness of having friends with kids—“Girl, so confusing” started a different sort of conversation, thanks to Charli’s allusions to a famous frenemy with “the same hair” as hers. It took all of five seconds for sleuths to deduce that the subject of the song was Lorde—though that conclusion was somewhat complicated by the fact that Lorde had quickly taken to Instagram to sing Brat’s praises.
More bewildering still, Lorde actually responded to the song. Last night, the two artists dropped their first-ever collaboration, “The girl, so confusing version with lorde” remix, produced by A.G. Cook. Instead of a cheeky, throwaway verse, Lorde met Charli’s stated insecurities about their relationship (“We talk about making music / But I don’t know if it’s honest / Can’t tell if you wanna see me / Falling over and failing”) with searing honesty of her own. “You’d always say, ‘Let’s go out’ / But then I’d cancel last minute / I was so lost in my head / And scared to be in your pictures,” Lorde sings. “’Cause for the last couple years / I’ve been at war with my body / I tried to starve myself thinner / And then I gained all the weight back / I was trapped in the hatred / And your life seemed so awesome / I never thought for a second / My voice was in your head.”
The collaboration opened up a Pandora’s Box of sorts. Had Lorde owed Charli an explanation for their dynamic? And how much personal information does an artist owe the public? Has this beef—if that’s even what it was—been one big marketing plan from the jump? Two of Vogue’s staff writers, Emma Specter and Hannah Jackson, convened to hash out their own thoughts, feelings, and lingering questions about the “Girl, so confusing” remix.
Hannah Jackson: Emma, as we know, it is officially a Brat Girl Summer. I’d love to know your favorite song on the album.
Emma Specter: I cannot stop listening to “Talk talk” from the moment I wake up at 6 a.m., which I’m sure thrills my neighbors. In terms of emotional resonance, though, my friend Shannon Keating wrote a beautiful essay about my other favorite song on the album, “I think about it all the time,” and its ability to make even the most inveterate post-Saturn-return party girls question our life choices. Hannah, what’s your fave song on the album?
HJ: For far less esoteric reasons, I cannot stop bumping “Guess” from the extended album. It’s infectiously fun, horny, and has an excellent beat, courtesy of producer Harrison Patrick Smith, a.k.a. The Dare, who has an impressive burgeoning music career of his own.
ES: Hannah, as someone who is disgustingly younger than me, please tell me: Could you see yourself dancing to “Girl, so confusing” in the club, or is it more of a “sit and ponder the mysteries of female friendship” vibe? Or do those things have to be mutually exclusive?
HJ: Historically, I’m guilty of leaving the club well before peak hours, and as Vogue’s only Gen Z staff writer, my colleagues are constantly telling me that I should be in the streets more. But Brat has given me an infusion of feral energy that, frankly, I didn’t know I had in me. What I loved so much about the album is that Charli XCX refuses to dull her intellect. The girlies can have a moment of deep self-interrogation about complicated female friendships, commercial success, and our biological clocks, all while getting down. The “Girl, so confusing” remix raises that feeling to the nth degree. (Being in a club full of other young women scream-singing Lorde’s verse is the Platonic ideal of a night out to me.) Emma, as we both know, the Vogue Slack was going off this morning about the remix. What do you think about it?
ES: I honestly don’t know that I’ve ever heard a musical exploration of disordered eating and body-image issues as vulnerable as Lorde’s verse on this song—and the really crazy thing is that it manages to coexist with the remix’s club-appropriate beat and elevate the whole thing without being too much of a bummer. (As the author of a forthcoming eating disorder memoir, I think a lot about how to toe this line!) I’m so excited that Charli and Lorde are carving out a place in the culture for women’s complex feelings about one another and themselves that does feel appropriate for scream-singing with your besties. Hannah, I’m curious; does the “Girl, so confusing” remix make you think of any other pop-culture reference points—musical, literary, or what have you?
HJ: Perhaps it’s the fact that Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo is on the horizon, but I kept thinking back to the relationship between Frances and Bobbi in Conversations With Friends. While I don’t necessarily think Lorde and Charli have a psychosexual thing going on, I do think that they tap into the same vein as Rooney’s heroines. When jealousy comes into play, the line between love and hate is thin, and begs the question: Do I want you or do I want to be you? Maybe it speaks more to my limited frame of reference here, but I can’t remember the last time two artists took on those feelings together. Even when artists release songs about subjects we can elucidate, they tend not to outright confirm them. So to have Lorde not only confirm, but also respond, was major. One big takeaway from her verse, as you’ve highlighted, Emma, was the raw honesty about her mental and physical health. What do you make of that? Do you think artists owe us the specifics of what’s going on in their lives? Did Lorde owe that to Charli as a friend?
ES: I am generally a firm believer that women owe us nothing, even if they’re famous. But to be honest, I’m such an amateur Reddit sleuth that I didn’t even know “Girl, so confusing” was allegedly about Lorde until the remix dropped; thus, it’s hard for me to feel like Charli and Lorde needed to hash this one out in public. But I’m so glad they did—I mean, at this point, aren’t we all sick of the predictable pop-star-feud fare of cryptic Instagram comments and vague refusals to answer press questions? God bless the girls for giving us an emotional processing session we can throw ass to! Hannah, if I can be so for real for one second: Do you think we’re basically falling for pop-girlie bait? How much sincerity should we read into the remix, and how much of it is simply…marketing?
HJ: I’m with you! I also think it’s great to see people hashing out their miscommunication brought about by human feelings on a public stage. As our colleague Liam Hess pointed out this morning, it’s a very welcome antidote to the therapy-speak people throw up like a shield during conflict. When it comes to the strategy of it all, they seemingly addressed it in the lyrics: “It’s you and me on the coin / The industry loves to spend.” Some of our colleagues also questioned whether or not this remix representedd an opportunity for Lorde to reenter the scene with a very different sound post-Solar Power. Whether or not it was, I honestly don’t think that changes much. I’d bet that these were still Charli’s authentic feelings, and Lorde’s response seems just as sincere. Manufactured or not, I’m extremely here for it!
