June 5, 2025 • 12 mins
On this episode, we ask why a five-year-old song by Charli xcx is suddenly a hit, and whether the indie sleaze vibe of the official music video for “party 4 u” is a recession indicator.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Welcome to at First Listen, the music podcast for people
who don't always.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Get the hype but want to.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
I'm Andrew, I'm Dominique, and today.
Speaker 4 (00:23):
Were talking about an old Charlie XCX song that's new
again and we're trying to figure out why.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Yeah, I had been hearing it all over the place,
and I didn't.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Know it was new because it isn't.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
But it's new again called Party Party for You. Sounds
like she's saying party, party on you.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
She says party on you a bunch of times later
in the.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Song Classic Charlie, what a lyricist?
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Yes, is that sarcastic?
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Yeah, it is a little bit this song.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
When I first put it on, I was like, wow,
with the auto tune, Charlie really leaning into the whole,
like I don't even bother singing anymore.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Thing, And it's a song from.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
Five years ago, where so she's clearly been not trying
to sing for a long time, where she just sort
of lets the auto tune do the work. Kind of
a bummer song. And then I learned a little bit
more about the background of it and it was from
a bummer time. So let me play a second of
it so people know what we're talking about, just kind
(01:30):
of starts on the chorus.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
There's our peggiator, only the.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
Body, only this bodyfy. It's like that Tom thing. It's
like an affected Tom uses the bass sound for it.
So she made this album in like a few weeks
in May of twenty twenty. Apparently she live streamed most
of it, most of the writing and recording of the
(01:57):
album on Instagram, and she was like taking suggestions from fans.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Like do you like this lyric? Do you not?
Speaker 4 (02:06):
And she as an artist has come such a long
way and broken through so completely in the few years
since then that I guess she was celebrating five years
since this album and it got people's attention. For whatever reason,
she's been performing this song live. It featured in her
(02:27):
Coachella set.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
To me, it's like this song fits well with the
ethos of Bratt, even though it's the vibe is different
and like the themes are different. It's a lot sadder,
But I think it's like Charlie has been coming out
(02:49):
with the music that kind of fits within that vibe
for a long time, so people who got into her after.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Brat would like this stuff.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
I think that's part of why it's like a good
time to be like, hey, I have other songs too.
You don't have to keep streaming Brat over and over again.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Spread it around.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
Yeah, there's other producers in the credits that could use it,
you know, a few royalties exactly.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
It's also I think it's funny because it's so repetitive,
like party, party on party on par party, and it's
it's almost like you already think that you've heard it
one hundred times when you've heard it once because it's
so repetitive.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Ye.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
And it's also like five four and a half minutes long,
pretty long for a Charlie song. I give her credit
for the irony with this one, where it's party for you,
but it's very much not a party vibe happening. It's
a very like sad, lonely vibe. There's like this echoy
sort of drum sound used through the whole thing, where
it's like, I'm the only person here. I throw this party.
(03:56):
The person I like did not show up and that
what am I even doing?
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Right?
Speaker 1 (04:01):
It works in a lot of ways because Charlie everywhere
she goes there's a huge party that's like her thing.
Oh that was the brat thing, Like every everything is
a rave if she's there, and this song is like
I just threw this party for you, and it's the
(04:22):
first time there's no party, and it's kind of like,
who is the party for you? Because I feel like
it's like she threw this party for her love, but
also she threw it for the fans, you know, she
threw this party for the people. And like she's like
(04:46):
almost kind of saying, I'm gonna chill out now and
spend some time with myself.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
We'll see, we'll see if that's what it means.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
But it did come out in a lonely time for everyone,
and I can only imagine that it could be a
lonely time for her. I mean a lot of stars
are talking about it, you know, like Chapel Roone and etc.
Talking about how it's tough being like super famous all
(05:16):
of a sudden.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
I like it.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
It's also maybe, depending on what she's planning on doing
this summer, maybe it's a good time to sort of
switch up her vibe in terms of what people know
her from. Obviously, the brat stuff is mostly very high energy.
This is such a low energy, sad kind of a song. Repetitive,
definitely a different look for her. But then maybe she's
(05:42):
going to come out with another party sort of techno
anthem that everyone loves and it's like Brat Part two.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
I hope, So I do hope. So I hope.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Because there's enough sad girl pop out there, you.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Know exactly, and she can also still do sad girl
songs better for party.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Sure.
Speaker 4 (06:01):
I mean that was of some of the brilliance of
Brad is how a lot of those songs were very
sad house music songs. Yeah, like three six five is like,
don't do drugs, kids, That's what she was saying.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
Maybe that's maybe it wasn't quite don't, but.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
It was drugs.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Drugs are, Drugs exist, and they are a complex topic.
We watched the music video also, and I am a
fan as well. So in the music video, she's dancing
around we think, somewhere in southern California, somewhere inland, not
(06:43):
not towards the coast, the California desert. It's not giving
UK vibes, it's giving Middle America vibes, RV mountains.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Grass, cracked sidewalk.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Rack, sidewalk, and she's like also in like a middle
class looking home with just like kind it's kind of trashed.
It's kind of trashed, there's not much in there. It's
you can tell no one lives there, and just dancing
around a little bit. And then she has a billboard
(07:17):
with her face on it that she then like lights
on fire. And at first I was like, is this
the substance people have seen? The substance will get it,
But it's like basically like destroying your an image, the
image of yourself that people that is like the the
polished image of yourself, trying to always get closer to
(07:42):
it and then destroying it. Then I was like Billboard,
Billboard Hot one hundred. You know, maybe it's also referencing
that her relationship with being at the top of the
charts and with fame in general.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
Yeah, I'm super curious about how how a major record
label and a big time artist throws together a music
video when it's for a song that they didn't expect
to be a hit single, and they had some lead
time because the song started popping out in February or so,
where it was kind of sticking out in terms of
(08:22):
streams from the other tracks on the album, but still
like for a big artist, making a music video is
oftentimes a big undertaking. But then on the other side,
like Charlie XCX's aesthetic is so like messy and rough
around the edges where it's like she's cool because she
doesn't look good all the time, even though she very
(08:43):
often looks good anyway. It doesn't need to look perfect.
It just needs to look.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Like it sounds.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Can you look yet you don't have to play it,
like is she singing along to the song?
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Because now I'm like, it's like a very it's like
she's sort of mumbling.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
A every once in a while, she kind of mumbles
long because I've.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Heard it's like, oh, that looks like one of my words.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
My thought is that they had this footage from a
long time ago and maybe they recorded it as a
music video, but they it was like never really, they
just never came out with it. You know, plenty of
artists never come out with their visuals that they film.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
There are nine pas in the credits.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Wow, so we're under selling it. Yeah, nine pas.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Go off.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
That's a pretty big production.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
That is a person.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
It doesn't look like it needed to be.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Yeah, yeah it does. You know, they're out in the
middle of nowhere. I guess that's part of it. Well,
I like it, I do. You know, everyone's talking about
recession indicators right now, okay, and I'm not sure. I
(09:58):
think it is kind of you know, we're kind of
rolling back around to like ten years almost ten years
since the recession, so it's kind of like trends cycle,
and it's ten years.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
Of people saying there's going to be a recession.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
So since the last recession, yeah, exactly, And so I'm like,
I'm not sure, but it is giving you know, Indie
Slee's vibes. It's like low fi. I think there has
been an earlier in like, wait, ten years, it's twenty
(10:37):
twenty five. Twenty fifteen was ten years ago. I'm thinking
of wow, twenty years ago, yes, well like seven almost twenty.
It was like two thousand and eight is more than
ten years ago, I think. So I do think that
it's hard to say if it's a recession indicator or
if it's just like a like a normal trend, or
(11:00):
if those things are combined. But like just the trashy,
cheek low fi thing coming back around, because I feel like,
you know, as camera quality, digital camera quality has increased
a lot like, we see a lot of like four
K three sixty three D four D everything, and then
(11:23):
we also are we see more of the opposite of it,
and this is sort of in between because this isn't
like cam quarter footage. This is like a decent digital
camera that doesn't pick up light that well.
Speaker 4 (11:36):
Right, So, if Charlie XCX puts out an album on cassette,
you think we're in trouble.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Hmmm.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
I think that could be a good thing. That could
be a good sign because people would have to go
buy cassette tape players can bring back that industry exactly, Okay,
made in America.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
That's economics at first. Listen style with our correspondent Dominique Capitalists.
Thanks everybody for listening. That's a mini and we'll be
back very soon with another episode.
Welcome to at First Listen, the music podcast for people
who don't always.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Get the hype but want to.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
I'm Andrew, I'm Dominique, and today.
Speaker 4 (00:23):
Were talking about an old Charlie XCX song that's new
again and we're trying to figure out why.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Yeah, I had been hearing it all over the place,
and I didn't.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Know it was new because it isn't.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
But it's new again called Party Party for You. Sounds
like she's saying party, party on you.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
She says party on you a bunch of times later
in the.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Song Classic Charlie, what a lyricist?
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Yes, is that sarcastic?
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Yeah, it is a little bit this song.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
When I first put it on, I was like, wow,
with the auto tune, Charlie really leaning into the whole,
like I don't even bother singing anymore.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Thing, And it's a song from.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
Five years ago, where so she's clearly been not trying
to sing for a long time, where she just sort
of lets the auto tune do the work. Kind of
a bummer song. And then I learned a little bit
more about the background of it and it was from
a bummer time. So let me play a second of
it so people know what we're talking about, just kind
(01:30):
of starts on the chorus.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
There's our peggiator, only the.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
Body, only this bodyfy. It's like that Tom thing. It's
like an affected Tom uses the bass sound for it.
So she made this album in like a few weeks
in May of twenty twenty. Apparently she live streamed most
of it, most of the writing and recording of the
(01:57):
album on Instagram, and she was like taking suggestions from fans.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Like do you like this lyric? Do you not?
Speaker 4 (02:06):
And she as an artist has come such a long
way and broken through so completely in the few years
since then that I guess she was celebrating five years
since this album and it got people's attention. For whatever reason,
she's been performing this song live. It featured in her
(02:27):
Coachella set.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
To me, it's like this song fits well with the
ethos of Bratt, even though it's the vibe is different
and like the themes are different. It's a lot sadder,
But I think it's like Charlie has been coming out
(02:49):
with the music that kind of fits within that vibe
for a long time, so people who got into her after.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Brat would like this stuff.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
I think that's part of why it's like a good
time to be like, hey, I have other songs too.
You don't have to keep streaming Brat over and over again.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Spread it around.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
Yeah, there's other producers in the credits that could use it,
you know, a few royalties exactly.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
It's also I think it's funny because it's so repetitive,
like party, party on party on par party, and it's
it's almost like you already think that you've heard it
one hundred times when you've heard it once because it's
so repetitive.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Ye.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
And it's also like five four and a half minutes long,
pretty long for a Charlie song. I give her credit
for the irony with this one, where it's party for you,
but it's very much not a party vibe happening. It's
a very like sad, lonely vibe. There's like this echoy
sort of drum sound used through the whole thing, where
it's like, I'm the only person here. I throw this party.
(03:56):
The person I like did not show up and that
what am I even doing?
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Right?
Speaker 1 (04:01):
It works in a lot of ways because Charlie everywhere
she goes there's a huge party that's like her thing.
Oh that was the brat thing, Like every everything is
a rave if she's there, and this song is like
I just threw this party for you, and it's the
(04:22):
first time there's no party, and it's kind of like,
who is the party for you? Because I feel like
it's like she threw this party for her love, but
also she threw it for the fans, you know, she
threw this party for the people. And like she's like
(04:46):
almost kind of saying, I'm gonna chill out now and
spend some time with myself.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
We'll see, we'll see if that's what it means.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
But it did come out in a lonely time for everyone,
and I can only imagine that it could be a
lonely time for her. I mean a lot of stars
are talking about it, you know, like Chapel Roone and etc.
Talking about how it's tough being like super famous all
(05:16):
of a sudden.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
I like it.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
It's also maybe, depending on what she's planning on doing
this summer, maybe it's a good time to sort of
switch up her vibe in terms of what people know
her from. Obviously, the brat stuff is mostly very high energy.
This is such a low energy, sad kind of a song. Repetitive,
definitely a different look for her. But then maybe she's
(05:42):
going to come out with another party sort of techno
anthem that everyone loves and it's like Brat Part two.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
I hope, So I do hope. So I hope.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Because there's enough sad girl pop out there, you.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Know exactly, and she can also still do sad girl
songs better for party.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Sure.
Speaker 4 (06:01):
I mean that was of some of the brilliance of
Brad is how a lot of those songs were very
sad house music songs. Yeah, like three six five is like,
don't do drugs, kids, That's what she was saying.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
Maybe that's maybe it wasn't quite don't, but.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
It was drugs.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Drugs are, Drugs exist, and they are a complex topic.
We watched the music video also, and I am a
fan as well. So in the music video, she's dancing
around we think, somewhere in southern California, somewhere inland, not
(06:43):
not towards the coast, the California desert. It's not giving
UK vibes, it's giving Middle America vibes, RV mountains.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Grass, cracked sidewalk.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Rack, sidewalk, and she's like also in like a middle
class looking home with just like kind it's kind of trashed.
It's kind of trashed, there's not much in there. It's
you can tell no one lives there, and just dancing
around a little bit. And then she has a billboard
(07:17):
with her face on it that she then like lights
on fire. And at first I was like, is this
the substance people have seen? The substance will get it,
But it's like basically like destroying your an image, the
image of yourself that people that is like the the
polished image of yourself, trying to always get closer to
(07:42):
it and then destroying it. Then I was like Billboard,
Billboard Hot one hundred. You know, maybe it's also referencing
that her relationship with being at the top of the
charts and with fame in general.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
Yeah, I'm super curious about how how a major record
label and a big time artist throws together a music
video when it's for a song that they didn't expect
to be a hit single, and they had some lead
time because the song started popping out in February or so,
where it was kind of sticking out in terms of
(08:22):
streams from the other tracks on the album, but still
like for a big artist, making a music video is
oftentimes a big undertaking. But then on the other side,
like Charlie XCX's aesthetic is so like messy and rough
around the edges where it's like she's cool because she
doesn't look good all the time, even though she very
(08:43):
often looks good anyway. It doesn't need to look perfect.
It just needs to look.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Like it sounds.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Can you look yet you don't have to play it,
like is she singing along to the song?
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Because now I'm like, it's like a very it's like
she's sort of mumbling.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
A every once in a while, she kind of mumbles
long because I've.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Heard it's like, oh, that looks like one of my words.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
My thought is that they had this footage from a
long time ago and maybe they recorded it as a
music video, but they it was like never really, they
just never came out with it. You know, plenty of
artists never come out with their visuals that they film.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
There are nine pas in the credits.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Wow, so we're under selling it. Yeah, nine pas.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Go off.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
That's a pretty big production.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
That is a person.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
It doesn't look like it needed to be.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Yeah, yeah it does. You know, they're out in the
middle of nowhere. I guess that's part of it. Well,
I like it, I do. You know, everyone's talking about
recession indicators right now, okay, and I'm not sure. I
(09:58):
think it is kind of you know, we're kind of
rolling back around to like ten years almost ten years
since the recession, so it's kind of like trends cycle,
and it's ten years.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
Of people saying there's going to be a recession.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
So since the last recession, yeah, exactly, And so I'm like,
I'm not sure, but it is giving you know, Indie
Slee's vibes. It's like low fi. I think there has
been an earlier in like, wait, ten years, it's twenty
(10:37):
twenty five. Twenty fifteen was ten years ago. I'm thinking
of wow, twenty years ago, yes, well like seven almost twenty.
It was like two thousand and eight is more than
ten years ago, I think. So I do think that
it's hard to say if it's a recession indicator or
if it's just like a like a normal trend, or
(11:00):
if those things are combined. But like just the trashy,
cheek low fi thing coming back around, because I feel like,
you know, as camera quality, digital camera quality has increased
a lot like, we see a lot of like four
K three sixty three D four D everything, and then
(11:23):
we also are we see more of the opposite of it,
and this is sort of in between because this isn't
like cam quarter footage. This is like a decent digital
camera that doesn't pick up light that well.
Speaker 4 (11:36):
Right, So, if Charlie XCX puts out an album on cassette,
you think we're in trouble.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Hmmm.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
I think that could be a good thing. That could
be a good sign because people would have to go
buy cassette tape players can bring back that industry exactly, Okay,
made in America.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
That's economics at first. Listen style with our correspondent Dominique Capitalists.
Thanks everybody for listening. That's a mini and we'll be
back very soon with another episode.
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