Just Like Clementines

Charli XCX “Claws”

Charli XCX’s new record, which she wrote and recorded within the past two months of quarantine, is the first album in her career that sounds fully like her doing exactly what she wants to do and playing to her strengths, and not absolutely drenched in record industry flop sweat. Without weak attempts at crossover hits or the transparent trend-chasing of the absurd number of features on her previous record, she’s free to get laser focused on her distinctive brand of sing-song melodies and taste for harsh electronic tones and yields a bunch of songs that sound like they could be actual hits rather than merely notional ones.

“Claws,” which XCX made in collaboration with the producer Dylan Brady, realizes the promise of the early PC Music phase in which accessible melodies were layered into fully digital tracks pushed to cartoonish extremes. It’s contemporary pop technique pushed to the point of abstraction, or maybe just a logical conclusion. There’s a campiness to this song, but XCX’s vocal is sweet and sincere in projecting infatuation to the point of guilelessness. The song conveys purity while sounding like a corrupted file.

Buy it from Amazon.