Charli XCX’s new single is out and she’s not alone, with Japanese singer-songwriter Rina Sawayama seen helping out on both singing and acting duties. Friends for a number of years now, it’s the first official collaboration between the two, after a botched attempt at a song for Charli’s 2019 album Charli.
Filmed in Lancaster, California, the video was directed by Nick Harwood in the same place that the iconic final scene of Se7en was filmed, featuring Brad Pitt having an unfortunate encounter with a box. The press release describes symbolism relating to the cult of celebrities and superstition, saying that it “encapsulates cult theology within popular culture; worship of an image, obsession of a higher power, ritualistic and superstitious practices and the sacrifice for perfection.“
The track features production credits from Digital Farm Animals and uses a sample from September’s “Cry For You“. If you want to stream the track, you can look here.
It’s only the latest single from Charli’s upcoming album, Crash, which is set to be released on March 18th. Previous singles include “Good Ones“ from last September, as well as the song “New Shapes“, which showed her taste for collaborations had not fully run its course with Sawayama. Working with Caroline Polacheck and Christine and the Queens, they almost got to feature on the popular American sketch show Saturday Night Live last December. Sadly the pandemic scuppered these intentions, but you can still listen to the track below.
As for her latest track, Charli has a lot of good things to say about it. Built from a demo given her by her record company, she says the track touches on a number of things very personal to her. “To me, “Beg For You” is the most perfectly constructed pop song. Not just because of its musicality, but because of its circumstance. Two arguably left-of-center pop stars, one of them a member of the queer community and one an ally of the queer community, coming together on a track that’s paying homage to an iconic and nostalgic queer anthem via the use of an interpolation…it couldn’t be more perfect!”
If you want to read more about the making of the video, you can look at this article here. Otherwise, news of a tour should put you in good spirits, with Charli coming to both North America and the UK/Europe over the coming months. Tickets can be purchased here and the UK tour dates can be seen below.
Charli XCX UK Tour Dates:
13/05/2022 – Olympia Theatre – Dublin
15/05 – O2 Academy – Glasgow
17/05 – Victoria Warehouse – Manchester
18/05 – O2 Academy – Birmingham
19/05 – Alexandra Palace – London
21/05 – UEA – Norwich
22/05 – O2 Academy – Sheffield
23/05 – Rock City – Nottingham
