Becoming something of a “soundtrack queen” (to rival Lana Del Rey), the chart success of “Speed Drive” from Barbie: The Album has prompted Charli XCX to make a music video for it. And, although Charli has had her fair share of anti-environmental music videos (see also: “2099”), “Speed Drive” might be her most no-fucks-given-about-Gaia one yet. Particularly at a time when any signs of flagrant abuse of Mother Earth have become more political than ever before. Nonetheless, what can anybody really expect from a song that, like Olivia Rodrigo’s “bad idea right?,” favors a bratty 00s-era feel to it? The 00s being one of the best times to exist for anyone who loved a gas-guzzling vehicle (whether Hummers or Bentleys).
And, talking of the 00s, no one was queen of the “sweet ride” like Regina George (Rachel McAdams) in Mean Girls. With her 2002 Lexus SC 430, Regina couldn’t have given less of a fuck about emitting fossil fuels (ergo, popular girls should be deemed losers for promoting rampant fossil fuel usage). Same as Barbie wouldn’t (and doesn’t) in her pink Corvette. The very one we see being driven by Devon Lee Carlson (who also gets name-checked in the song) as the video, co-directed by XCX and Ramez Silyan, opens on her and Charli speeding down the backroads overlooked by Los Angeles’ Fourth Street Bridge.
If the overall aesthetic seems familiar, complete with “industrial L.A. backdrop,” it’s because Charli has managed to continue her Crash era from early 2022 into the present. After all, as she’s admitted herself, “I’ve always really liked singing about cars. For me, there is this intrinsic link between driving and music and feeling like you’re a star when you’re in a car.” But, for as “brightly burning” as one might feel in that “star-y” moment they get from what Missy Elliott would describe as, “Top down, loud sound/See my peeps,” it’s not going to be even half as brightly burning as this Earth amid going up into flames thanks to unremitting CO2 emissions. Which makes one not merely “wonder” (so much as despise) why Charli (and many pop stars/other types of famous people) are so content to keep plugging the notion of how driving is “freedom” when, in fact, it will be the death of everyone. And while, sure, some say death is the ultimate liberation, there are others still who would prefer to last as long as possible without the effects of air pollution/climate change taking years off their lives. This being precisely what continued car usage (and the glamorization of car usage) will do.
XCX might have talked about the “intrinsic link” between driving and music, but she glossed right past the intrinsic link between driving and capitalism. As Metric says in the chorus of “Handshakes,” “Buy this car to drive to work/Drive to work to pay for this car.” The vicious cycle that arises when a shoddy economic system creates a need that isn’t actually a need, but a frivolous, detrimental want caused by a made-up life purpose (i.e., working a job you hate [or at least resent] so as to be paid). And yet, because of the expert conditioning we’re all given from day one thanks to advertising and, correlatively, the celebrity-industrial complex, we tell ourselves that selfish desires are needs. Including the desire to superfluously drive around in our cars doing donuts and slamming the brakes arbitrarily after stepping on the gas and letting out another massive, senseless CO2 fart into the world. Which is what both Carlson and Charli seem to enjoy doing with their status as: rich and influential.
Before we can get the full, uninterrupted effect of Charli letting her gasses loose, she steps out of the front seat in a white onesie (that seems the best word for it) complemented by a pink and white feather boa. As she starts to get into her “I’m a hot girl, pop girl, rich girl/I’m a bitch girl” type of dance, the world of the music video is shattered by the meta sound of her “Vroom Vroom” ringtone. Indeed, this entire portion is supposed to be meta, what with Sam Smith also being present on Barbie: The Album. Answering her oh so specifically zoomed in on Samsung Galaxy Z Flip5, the screen is opened to reveal Smith demanding, “Did you have a chance to listen to the new mix, babe? What’d you think?” She tells Smith, “I’m actually on the set of a music video right now.” Smith replies, “Okay, okay, sorry. I just, we gotta submit it so we can get it out.” Promising to call them afterward, she snaps the phone closed and cuts right back to the gear shift of the pink Corvette as Carlson hits the gas, showing us the “thrill” of the needle on the odometer rising while she does donuts around a dancing Charli. This in between close-ups on the car’s version of fuzzy dice hanging on the rearview mirror: an Android mini collectible. Because what is this video if not an aggrandizement of capitalistic synergy (mostly pertaining to Samsung)?
While XCX happily mugs for the camera, Carlson’s driving skills cause a huge blast of smoke to trail behind her in the Corvette’s wake. This is appropriately timed to coincide with XCX cockily singing, “Got the top down, tires on fire (on fire).” Followed by a classic “I’m an asshole but there’s nothing wrong with that” defense as Charli flexes, “Who are you? I’m livin’ my life/See you lookin’ with that side eye/Wow, you’re so jealous ’cause I’m one of a kind/What you think about me, I don’t care.” Really? Even if one tends to think Charli is a one-woman promotion parade for using and touting all manner of vehicles that contribute to our collective quietus? It seems like something one should care about, reputation-wise. But, as she’s made clear, she’s too “hot, ridin’ through the streets” and “on a different frequency”—at least from the environmentally-minded who would prefer to stop seeing the deification (and sexualization, à la J. G. Ballard’s Crash) of cars. Those metal monsters who will spell human extinction if AI doesn’t first.
To add insult to injury, rubber tires are set ablaze for the purpose of the video, emitting more smoke into the air so that the aerosols can contribute to affecting climate change as well. Even before this moment, it was long ago apparent that Charli is strictly among the camp that views environmental-friendliness not only as a hindrance to “economic growth,” but also, evidently, to her “art.” And as the credits to the video show the “tag” of Charli standing in the middle of the road while a freight train slowly crawls past her and a flaming wheel rolls by, to boot, she confirms that no one actually gives a shit about mitigating environmental damage as much as possible, whenever possible. Not when it makes them look so “hot” to do otherwise. Alas, everyone will be Satan-level hot on a more literal level soon enough.
