For those who didn’t think Caroline Polachek’s bop, “Welcome to My Island,” could get any better, Charli XCX has arrived to give her own take on it. One delivered in the “persona” of a decidedly creamy smooth pop icon goddess (as Madonna likes to call herself). In this regard, XCX continues to adopt the same braggadocious tone we’ve come to know and love on Crash, translating it into a “remix” that feels like a dripping-in-decadence song unto itself. Indeed, Polachek’s faint presence in the background of her own single is overshadowed by XCX with far more overtness than Taylor Swift doing the same to Lana Del Rey during “Snow on the Beach.” But that’s to be expected when Polachek trusts in XCX’s brilliance to remake a song based on their past collaborations together (including “New Shapes,” which also featured Christine and the Queens). And the brilliance XCX provides here is no exception to the rule.
As someone who has transformed parodying pop stardom to the point where she can perhaps no longer blur the line between the parody and the real, the George Daniel and Charli XCX remix of “Welcome to My Island” fits right in with XCX’s simultaneous mockery and embracement of excess. In short, all the trappings of stardom and its according wealth. Among such trappings being island getaways at the drop of a custom-made hat. After all, there’s a reason so many celebrities buy private islands—it’s the ultimate milieu where no rules need apply to them (not that they really do elsewhere either). And yes, Richard Branson, who Charli name checks in the song with, “I guess I’m on my Richard Branson wave/No virgin, but I knew just how to behave,” is among the many “eccentric” (read: difficult because they can be) celebrities to own an island.
What’s more, when Charli says she knows just how to behave, she means she knows just how to misbehave, regaling us with her double entendre-filled description, “You can drive me down to Florida and fuck me for days/Back at the start, think you knew that I was dangerous/I’ve done a couple bad things if you catch my drift/I told him, ‘Baby, you can pull up on the landing strip’/And if you do it right, welcome to my island, bitch.”
It’s that last line that XCX has remade with the blunt addition of the word “bitch” that has rendered this version of “Welcome to My Island” arguably more iconic than Polachek’s original (which isn’t an easy feat considering how amazing it is already). And there’s no denying a touch of the Britney influence in “coming up with” that one-word addendum. XCX being a fan of Spears (like most of us), it’s certain that “Gimme More” has played a part in her pop music inspiration, perhaps finally manifesting at its most obvious with the straightforward declaration, “Welcome to my island, bitch.” For if Britney could make a similarly simple announcement so memorable by adding “bitch” (i.e., “It’s Britney, bitch”), then surely Charli could, too. And so she has, with an anthem that touts the glamor and indulgence of what being on an island connotes to those who don’t actually have to live on one full-time. For, as most who endure that fate know, it hardly feels like a 24/7 vacation, so much as a 24/7 nightmare.
More than just the lyrical depictions, however, it is the sonic landscape—courtesy of Jim-E Stack, Dan Nigro, Danny L Harle, Caroline Polachek and George Daniel—that transports us into an environment so carefree and bacchanalian that it’s almost (almost) as good as actually being in, say, Ibiza (where this song should probably be playing on a loop throughout the summer). And for the landlocked plebes who will never make it to such exotic locations evoked by “Welcome to My Island,” the track alone will have to suffice, ingratiating itself among the Lavish Getaway Canon with other “rare breed” singles such as “La Isla Bonita.” And as for John Donne, who said, “No man is an island,” well, that’s probably just because he had never met a millionaire or billionaire with his own to prove otherwise.
[…] Genna Rivieccio Source link […]