There was a time when Charli XCX made huge, chart-topping hits, but she’s spent the last few years cultivating a crew of niche, not-quite-underground figures. Her work throughout the second half of the 2010s with producers A.G. Cook and the late SOPHIE brought her to a new sonic palette that the rest of pop music has finally started to catch up to—just look at how Camila Cabello has spent her 2024.
The singles from her forthcoming album brat so far have flexed this status. “It’s okay to just admit that you’re obsessed with me,” she begins on lead single “Von Dutch.” Charli’s latest single “360,” released today, covers some of the same lyrical territory: “When you’re in the mirror, do you like what you see? When you’re in the mirror, you’re just looking at me.” But this time, there’s a bit of a twist. “Call me Gabbriette, you’re so inspired,” she sings, and later, “I’m everywhere, I’m so Julia,” shouting out the current It Girls of both U.S. coasts. Gabbriette is the musician and model currently dating The 1975 frontman Matty Healy; Julia Fox, of course, acted in Uncut Gems before becoming a tabloid fixture over a brief romance with Kanye West. She is also a celebrity memoirist.
Naturally, the “360" music video sees Charli linking up with these two and many more, including Bottoms star Rachel Sennot and Euphoria actor Chloe Cherry, for a meeting to find the “new, hot internet girl.” Qualifications include: a certain je ne sais quoi, being really hot in a scary way, and being known but at the same time unknowable. After the intro skit, it’s a pretty standard music video, complete with the Charli XCX staple of smashed cars. The video does land one coup with the appearance of Chloë Sevigny, an It Girl who did it before there was an internet to help. Emerging from a car, shrouded in a cloud of her own cigarette smoke, Sevigny wordlessly demonstrates why all the others have been obsessed with her.