Addicted To The Blueprint

Charli XCX “You (Ha Ha Ha)”

I’ve felt weirdly hesitant about Charli XCX and Icona Pop for the past year or so – I like them both, they’re very obviously my sort of thing, but I haven’t embraced them the way I certainly would have in the early days of this site. I think to some extent it’s a matter of songs like “Nuclear Seasons” and “I Love It” not necessarily fitting in with my life at the moment, but mostly that I’m just holding out for an actual body of work to properly assess them as artists. I can love random songs and singles, but I’m not about to invest. Charli XCX seems to be on the verge of something though – there’s a clear aesthetic to her work, a persona is forming. She’s kinda mean, kinda sentimental, kinda mall-goth. This song, her latest single, leans hard on the “mean” side. I mean, this is a song that ends with lines “All alone, you’re dumb / You’re dumb, you messed it up / ha ha ha.” Depending on the circumstances of your life, that’s either gonna be a little exhausting, or totally exhilarating.

Buy it from iTunes.