Charli XCX and Rina Sawayama take on a 2000’s dance-pop hit
Charli XCX has completely sold out after her recent single Beg For You, but it’s all part of the plan. The British music contemporary’s new release features fellow British-Japanese songstress Rina Sawayama, and the duo is reclaiming what it means to be a sell-out pop star. The single is the third from Charli’s fifth studio album, CRASH, and interpolates the 2000’s pop banger Cry For You by September. Charli says, “I felt like Crash wouldn’t really be a truthful representation of what it’s like to be a female pop artist signed to Atlantic Records without doing an interpolation song, so I did it,”.
“Commentary on navigating the major label system”
This is a theme Charli has been adamant about keeping throughout her final project with Atlantic Records. On Twitter, she tweets, “Imagine if this entire album campaign was just a commentary on navigating the major label system and the sadistic nature of pop music as a whole?” With what many think will be her most pop album yet, this is something Charli is capturing.
As a songwriter, Charli is usually always in the room writing her own singles. Not on Beg For You, however. In an interview with EW, Charli says that the single was pitched to her instead of written with her. With a hefty total of nine writers on the track, Charli explains how this was also intentional. Beg For You is “very much like an early/mid-2000s way of making a song.” she says as a reference to a time in pop when this style of song-making was common.
It’s straight to the point pop music
Sonically, the track is a very straightforward pop song. Charli kept the dance-pop style of September’s version and added a nostalgic U.K. garage beat. The result is a clean-cut record void of the glitchy pitched-up style she’s become iconic for. Additionally, it is her first collaboration with producer Digital Farm Animals. Lyrically, Charli and Rina followed suit with the self-sabotage theme also in Good Ones and New Shapes. This time, however, it is a look at the desperation that follows being destructive. “Oh, don’t you leave me this way/Won’t you wait another hour or two?” begs Charli in the chorus.
What we are seeing with Charli is that she left all of her bells and whistles with her last project. Beg For You perfectly showcases what fans and Charli know as her “selling out.” The 2000’s pop production and the conglomerative creation of the song are testimate to that. The song by no means broke boundaries. However, I don’t think that was Charli’s goal on this one. She didn’t want to reinvent the wheel – she wanted to polish it up a bit and use it herself.
See the gorgeous, gorgeous, girls in a visualizer for the song below, and expect a music video for the track soon!
