This is great! The satisfying dualism (shame/pride) of Charli's jealousy here is a tension that makes this song work really well. Ty for foregrounding that here because, honestly, I was caught up in the dishiness of it.
On the note of shame/pride being linked thru others' sympathy, though, I wonder if your sympathy to Taylor's current position, isolated for years on the Ticketmaster/Billboard mountaintop, would be irritating *to Taylor!* That's what I think the song is about: be careful with your sympathy because it's a fuckin' knife! It turns shame to pride and pride to shame and back again.
Maybe that's why Charli's aligning herself with the mean girls and more generally pushing against the niceness imperative: being fake nice is genuinely more emotionally damaging than being an honest hater, in Charli's telling. And now my midwestern ass is in a bind because being fake nice is my favorite way to be an honest hater
really good thoughts here, especially on the sympathy is a knife title which i mostly ignored. Unwanted sympathy something that the artists have to work through I think, I'm allowed to feel sympathy if I want to, but it's real that sympathy isn't always a good thing to receive.
I believe you've missed an important element of this feud.
Later on the album, the song "Girl, So Confusing" is widely understood to be a sympathetic portrait of Lorde, who it also portrays as being kind of a bitch. The premise is that Lorde isn't a very good friend, but that this is understandable because it's hard to be a pop star. This is well documented.
But what is less commented on is that following the great Lorde-Antonoff-Taylor split of the 2010s and some poorly choreographed interviews, Lorde found herself expelled from Taylor's clique.
For Charli to write about how she's willing to stick with the trouble with Lorde is a clear attack on Taylor's fake-friend posturing—Taylor is thin-skinned and judgemental, Charli believes in being sympathetic even to people's faults.
One could even read Von Dutch as an anti-Taylor broadside in this light, although there isn't as much textual evidence.
And there's some evidence this feud has been anticipated by Taylor—what's this widely mocked line if not an adolescent attempt at channelling Charli's style?
> You know how to ball, I know Aristotle
> Brand new, full-throttle (yeah)
> Touch me while your bros play Grand Theft Auto
Overall, I anticipate that this is a sufficiently large broadside that things escalate substantially, with Taylor taking the bait. It truly is the year of the hater.
hahaha. "Girl so confusing" is an interesting song in how raw it is about Charli's relationship with Lorde, but ultimately I think they're just artists on two totally different artist wavelengths, poems vs. parties like the song says. I don't know if Taylor was trying to preemptively parody Charli's style as part of their larger feud, that seems a bit much.
Charli's cuntiness to Taylor is making me feel sorry for Taylor, now you mention it. I don't mean in the music, no artists should restrain themselves in the subject matter in their songs, but these other little jabs do feel mean. But part of Charli's whole aesthetic and sound is bein a little bitchy and that's valid too.
lol i love brat so much... honestly dont know enough abt taylor to comment on that dynamic but i do love that charli is being spicy, championing the right for girls to be bitchy again. love.
This article is so spot on. I've always thought as Charli as more of a creative, pioneering and culturally influencial artist than other pop artists like dua lipa ect
the aspect of charli feeling prideful of her jealousy is an interesting point!
charli and taylor are both ambitious, but another crucial measure of artistic reach is influence.
taylor's daughters are everywhere. it's so obviously top-down where taylor is the master and everyone else is a poor copy. olivia rodrigo and phoebe bridgers are the two i actually like, but everywhere else she is inspiring incredibly mid confessional songwriting and vocals.
in contrast, charli xcx and the hyperpop scene have been influencing kpop and other scenes in a much more responsive way through all the references and cross-pollination. in the 2000s, kpop swipes britney's sound in this splenda-britney high-artifice way. hyperpop takes the extremities of pop music including kpop and distorts them further, becomes popular in the 2010s, in the 2020s, kpop takes influence from the hyperpop sound, and the pc music scene is legitimized in the mainstream through collabs and streams. charli is kind of a bridge between "pure" robot and commercial pop.
it's true that Phoebe Bridgers and Olivia Rodrigo are deeply influenced by Taylor, but they're both a little distant from her now. There's a little animosity, especially between Olivia Rodrigo and her.
tbh seems like TS doesn't want to inspire anyone to be better than her. maybe some of that is because her commercial interests have always been so blatant and the most highly respected artists of the past generation have seen her as merely "great gowns, beautiful gowns."
she doesn't want to be part of anyone's influence, reference, a scene. the economy of taylor swift only works when she is singular. beyonce can stay because she's grandfathered in, but everyone else has to be gobbled up.
This is great! The satisfying dualism (shame/pride) of Charli's jealousy here is a tension that makes this song work really well. Ty for foregrounding that here because, honestly, I was caught up in the dishiness of it.
On the note of shame/pride being linked thru others' sympathy, though, I wonder if your sympathy to Taylor's current position, isolated for years on the Ticketmaster/Billboard mountaintop, would be irritating *to Taylor!* That's what I think the song is about: be careful with your sympathy because it's a fuckin' knife! It turns shame to pride and pride to shame and back again.
Maybe that's why Charli's aligning herself with the mean girls and more generally pushing against the niceness imperative: being fake nice is genuinely more emotionally damaging than being an honest hater, in Charli's telling. And now my midwestern ass is in a bind because being fake nice is my favorite way to be an honest hater
really good thoughts here, especially on the sympathy is a knife title which i mostly ignored. Unwanted sympathy something that the artists have to work through I think, I'm allowed to feel sympathy if I want to, but it's real that sympathy isn't always a good thing to receive.
I like this synthesis. Sympathy can be a lovely, humane thing to feel! :) <3
very solid take
Mr. Healing,
I believe you've missed an important element of this feud.
Later on the album, the song "Girl, So Confusing" is widely understood to be a sympathetic portrait of Lorde, who it also portrays as being kind of a bitch. The premise is that Lorde isn't a very good friend, but that this is understandable because it's hard to be a pop star. This is well documented.
But what is less commented on is that following the great Lorde-Antonoff-Taylor split of the 2010s and some poorly choreographed interviews, Lorde found herself expelled from Taylor's clique.
For Charli to write about how she's willing to stick with the trouble with Lorde is a clear attack on Taylor's fake-friend posturing—Taylor is thin-skinned and judgemental, Charli believes in being sympathetic even to people's faults.
One could even read Von Dutch as an anti-Taylor broadside in this light, although there isn't as much textual evidence.
And there's some evidence this feud has been anticipated by Taylor—what's this widely mocked line if not an adolescent attempt at channelling Charli's style?
> You know how to ball, I know Aristotle
> Brand new, full-throttle (yeah)
> Touch me while your bros play Grand Theft Auto
Overall, I anticipate that this is a sufficiently large broadside that things escalate substantially, with Taylor taking the bait. It truly is the year of the hater.
hahaha. "Girl so confusing" is an interesting song in how raw it is about Charli's relationship with Lorde, but ultimately I think they're just artists on two totally different artist wavelengths, poems vs. parties like the song says. I don't know if Taylor was trying to preemptively parody Charli's style as part of their larger feud, that seems a bit much.
Mr. Healing,
Please read the Lorde / Antonoff PDF and come back here.
Charli's cuntiness to Taylor is making me feel sorry for Taylor, now you mention it. I don't mean in the music, no artists should restrain themselves in the subject matter in their songs, but these other little jabs do feel mean. But part of Charli's whole aesthetic and sound is bein a little bitchy and that's valid too.
lol i love brat so much... honestly dont know enough abt taylor to comment on that dynamic but i do love that charli is being spicy, championing the right for girls to be bitchy again. love.
This article is so spot on. I've always thought as Charli as more of a creative, pioneering and culturally influencial artist than other pop artists like dua lipa ect
the aspect of charli feeling prideful of her jealousy is an interesting point!
charli and taylor are both ambitious, but another crucial measure of artistic reach is influence.
taylor's daughters are everywhere. it's so obviously top-down where taylor is the master and everyone else is a poor copy. olivia rodrigo and phoebe bridgers are the two i actually like, but everywhere else she is inspiring incredibly mid confessional songwriting and vocals.
in contrast, charli xcx and the hyperpop scene have been influencing kpop and other scenes in a much more responsive way through all the references and cross-pollination. in the 2000s, kpop swipes britney's sound in this splenda-britney high-artifice way. hyperpop takes the extremities of pop music including kpop and distorts them further, becomes popular in the 2010s, in the 2020s, kpop takes influence from the hyperpop sound, and the pc music scene is legitimized in the mainstream through collabs and streams. charli is kind of a bridge between "pure" robot and commercial pop.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XxvhA01gTw
it's true that Phoebe Bridgers and Olivia Rodrigo are deeply influenced by Taylor, but they're both a little distant from her now. There's a little animosity, especially between Olivia Rodrigo and her.
that's true.
tbh seems like TS doesn't want to inspire anyone to be better than her. maybe some of that is because her commercial interests have always been so blatant and the most highly respected artists of the past generation have seen her as merely "great gowns, beautiful gowns."
she doesn't want to be part of anyone's influence, reference, a scene. the economy of taylor swift only works when she is singular. beyonce can stay because she's grandfathered in, but everyone else has to be gobbled up.