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?