The still somehow under the radar CYN (who recently made a cameo on another amazing soundtrack, Birds of Prey with the track, “Lonely Gun”) is increasingly creeping into public consciousness not just because Katy Perry feels the need to broadcast pop artists that make better music than she does (hear also: Allie X), but because she has struck gold again with an anthemic single made just for a soundtrack–this time for the forthcoming Promising Young Woman. A revenge thriller starring Carey Mulligan as Cassandra “Cassie” Thomas, our once promising young woman in question goes down a dark and lonely rabbit hole after a rape in college derails her entire life path. Now, instead, she gets back at men and the patriarchy by drugging them the way college dudes and beyond are notorious for doing when they want to have their way with a girl who isn’t being “amenable” enough.
And so the fittingly titled “Drinks” centers on a narrative in which a girl doesn’t let her temper get the best of her the way a man does, but instead gets drinks. Free-flowing and never-ending because “Alexa knows the bartender, so all the drinks are free.” Bully for CYN, who sports a sharp pantsuit complete with vest that might even make an Englishman like Guy Ritchie a bit jealous of her sartorial style. And as she meanders through the sort of bar that one only finds in Los Angeles, what with its restaurant-style booths and plant motif wallpaper, we get the sense that she is very much walking around in circles over her latest male-related drama as she declares, “No, I’m not walking around in circles worried about what he thinks/Yes, some shit went down/So now I’m up for anything.” Including arm wrestling with a tattooed stranger, drinking every cocktail in existence and playing a blasé game of cards with her oft mentioned in the lyrics “friend,” who seems more than just a little bored with CYN’s take on things.
Even so, the bonds of female friendship cannot be broken, and are certainly more ironclad than most heteronormative romances. Which is why her “out with my friend” status enables her to feel as liberated as possible with her drinking. Because, unlike Mulligan’s Cassandra, she isn’t pretending to get totally shitfaced in order to lure men into a false sense of security, she’s genuinely going on a bender that mirrors her emotional roller coaster as she muses, “You know I won’t fake it or keep it undercover/And with it all out in the open, I can be me again/Taking the Band-Aid and ripping it off/Wish that I could but I can’t care at all/House made of cards and it’s starting to fall.”
That “house of cards” referring to her carefully curated veneer, with the small cracks in it starting to shatter the entire facade. As tends to happen with so many women on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Particularly in a climate where we still need to have International Women’s Day as a means to somehow acknowledge that women are just as “boss” as men see themselves already on a day-to-day basis. But now, thanks to CYN, every girl has the perfect getting ready anthem, as well as one for the dance floor, while she seeks to wreak almost as much havoc as Cassandra, who also has plenty of other charming ditties (including a chilling remake of Britney Spears’ “Toxic”) throughout her story to fan the flames of the fire for revenge burning within her. One appropriately summed up by CYN’s final gesture in the music video of throwing a drink right in the camera’s face. Though we can presume it was intended to be the visage of a man. One who prompted her to come to the conclusion: “I don’t know what the problem is/I don’t think it’s me.”
On that note, the writer-director of the movie, Emerald Fennell (known for being the head writer on Killing Eve, as well as writing children’s books), also served as the executive soundtrack producer. This is perhaps why there’s been a slight spike in the return to the glory days of soundtracks that have emerged this year, with several women in the director’s chair echoing Fennell’s statement, “I spent my childhood growing up on incredible soundtracks–Romeo + Juliet, Clueless, Can’t Hardly Wait and Empire Records saw me through every crush, heartbreak and schoolyard humiliation. I never dreamed one day I’d be holding the soundtrack to my own film. Getting to work with Capitol on this record has truly been the most exciting process of all time and collaborating with so many unbelievably talented female artists has been magical. I’m so, so grateful to everyone involved.” CYN and her “Drinks” included.
