If one recalls back to what feels like the oh so long ago year of 2019, one might be able to dig up from the annals of bizarre pop culture offerings a collaboration between Diplo, Charli XCX and Herve Pagez called “Spicy.” An overt nod to the song’s rip off of the rhythm to Spice Girls’ “Wannabe,” some wondered why the track was necessary at all when they could simply just listen to Spice Girls’ original. What lent the song an even more “why the fuck is this happening?” quality was its accompanying video, a Lisa Frank-inspired acid trip rife with green screen usage for background graphics at every turn. And, of course (?), many, many colorful dolphins–ergo the added Lisa Frankness of it all.
In 2020, however, the inexplicable and random make sense, for it all speaks to the limitations of being quarantined. Thus, after releasing a decidedly “homemade” video–that also details the drastic shift in all of our lives in just a few short months–for her first single, “Forever,” from her forthcoming How I’m Feeling Now album, one could only expect something of a similar vein for “Claws,” as Charli is among the Californians being more adherent to Governor Gavin Newsom’s stay-at-home decree. As such, the creative process for someone who understands the importance of quarantine is contingent upon both improvisation and using the materials at one’s disposal right now. So it is that we have the Charlotte Rutherford-directed piece for “Claws,” just one second longer than the video for “Spicy.”
Opening with Charli asking her boyfriend, Huck Kwong, “Are you excited to shoot?” as he stands in front of a print-out sign that reads “Charli XCX Claws Video Shoot,” we’re given plenty of preparation for the fact that Charli is using a green screen. Clearly, she very much wants you to know this, so as to amply play up the stay-at-home DIY ghettoness of it all (and, as Megan Thee Stallion has taught us, one can be just as bougie as she is ratchet). To inform other fans and artistic aspirants that a life in lockdown doesn’t have to mean boredom, but a chance to create something new. Though, granted, this isn’t exactly the pithiest video. Then again, “pithy” has never been Charli’s modus operandi. It’s always been about fun, giving people a reason to dance.
And, regardless of whether or not Claws the show ever gets to shoot its fourth season after being shut down amid the coronaV pandemic, therefore use this song (which also overtly alludes to nails) on its soundtrack, it does not matter. For Charli has already canonized the work with a 90s wet dream of backdrop imagery. In fact, the entire concept reminds one of those music video outposts one could go to at the mall in the 90s to do their own lip-synced version of a popular song against, what else, a green screen. This flair for conjuring the vibe of a certain decade, naturally, should come as no surprise from the girl who brought us “1999.” From butterflies and rainbows to Cher Horowitz-inspired white platforms and a leopard print chair, there’s plenty of 90s zeitgeisty imagery to remind one that, indeed, it was a much better time than now. Like, objectively–not even romanticizing that shit. In between, there is a Grimes-like avatar/alien that creeps in with an “XCX” emblazoned on her chest. Unwittingly, maybe it means seemingly harmless entities will actually end up infecting our space. But again, that’s probably attributing too much meaning to a Charli video.
The only scene of her in the “natural world” (which has been rendered more unnatural than ever) occurs as she’s riding a scooter whimsically through her Beachwood Canyon neighborhood, followed by the increased use of shots of two Windows ‘95-type (in terms of graphics) floating heads kissing each other as they all at once start looking like entwined sperm. Soon, Charli’s backdrop changes to one of a walking mass of people (for that’s the only way we can get close again to a horde–if it’s on a green screen) before the heads converge as two human ones (Charli’s and Huck’s) to kiss in the style of an Old Hollywood movie. So yes, in short, it’s a more romantic update on the nonsensical nature of “Spicy.”
