Although it feels as though Charli XCX has never been very far away in the years since the release of her second album, Sucker, in 2014, it has indeed been much too long since we’ve been bestowed with something that’s not a “mixtape” (as was the case with Pop 2, released in December of ’17). As we get ever-closer to the release date of her third album, Charli, in September, the British princess of synthpop seems all the more contented to pull some Lana Del Rey with Norman Fucking Rockwell moves in unveiling a bevy of the songs before the record’s actual release. Thus, to date, we have “1999″ featuring Troye Sivan, “Blame It On Your Love” featuring Lizzo, “Gone” featuring Christine and the Queens and now this, “Cross You Out,” a slightly more polite and less played way of saying “cancelled,” which is precisely what Charli aims to do with a certain toxic person she let hang around perhaps well-past the expiration date as a result of the youthful folly of thinking someone will change.
In keeping with the trend of having featured artists with her on a song (a trend that pervades eight of the fifteen tracks on the record, as though she just can’t shake that mixtape requisite), Sky Ferreira joins on this one for an intensified effect of empowered melancholy. Together, both leave their listener with the notion that, despite the fear, “Thought I’d fall apart,” in excommunicating someone that no longer serves one’s best interests just because she’s been around them for so long, it doesn’t mean it’s reason enough to persist in investing time or effort into such a relationship. And, though it might be terrifying at first–the pain aspect of it being most horrific of all–Charli accurately describes, “But you’re gone and I’m doing fine” after having asked herself (as so many naturally codependent women convinced their worth is defined by a man do), “All on my own, will I survive?”
The answer is yes–with a little help from Ferreira (herself known for crossing toxicity out in the form of her record label). And a dramatic 80s-inspired (we’re talking power ballad vibes) backing beat rife with synths produced by A.G. Cook and Lotus IV. As the chorus reaches a crescendo, XCX and Ferreira ultimately declare in unison, “I’ve become someone better/Now I look in the mirror/And I learn I’m so much better.” So yes, after that intense phobia about letting go of someone you want so desperately to treat you as well as you treat them, it turns out it’s better on the other side of it.
Yet, at the same time, while it’s all lovely to find one’s formerly lacking inner strength in shutting out someone (typically a bloke) given too many liberties with your heart, there is a millennial extremism in the line, “Now I look in the mirror/Feels so good to forget ya.” And that is precisely what we do now with people who have burned us in relationships. Because dealing with the agonizing emotions behind letting a person go isn’t in keeping with the millennial aversion to pain. However, one thing a millennial can’t resist is being ironic, thus the song’s title, which speaks to that era–the 80s–Charli seems to have such an affinity for in terms of evoking the image of actually X-ing out a boy’s face on a tangible photo of the two of you. Alas, the twenty-first century doesn’t allow for that level of satisfaction. But at least we have the evincing imagery of doing so thanks to the latest addition to the breakup songs hall of fame (of which there have been many this year, including Tove Lo’s “Glad He’s Gone” and Miley Cyrus’ “Slide Away“).
