ᴡʀᴀᴘᴘᴇᴅ // unpacked 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟒
6. Miss Belladonna
Slayyyter
After making a name for herself with decadent pastiches of Y2K pop, Slayyyter proved herself to be a versatile pop auteur with her 80s-influenced sophomore effort Starfucker — a sort of concept album that explores Hollywood’s seedy underbelly from a satirical lens. This track, the album’s second single, serves as a character study of the album’s narrator — a fame-hungry femme fatale. Just like the flower she gets her name from, Miss Belladonna has a kiss that’s “like poison” — she yields her sexuality to bleed men dry. While the lyrics put her in a somewhat unflattering light — she’s the stereotypical gold-digging social climber — Miss Belladonna’s allure is undeniable, fatal as it may be.
Like the men who pursue her despite her nefarious intentions, you can’t help but admire her confidence and power. That’s due, in large part, to the clever storytelling and thorough world-building Slayyyter utilizes throughout Starfucker. She makes sure you know that Miss Belladonna is the one in control. Men may be her meal ticket, but they are also her playthings — “I call him up whenever I wanna’ … He lives for love and I live for drama.” The contrast between her glamorous allure and villainous motives makes this song work both as an aspirational empowerment anthem and cautionary tale.
7. Von dutch
Charli xcx
If “360” works as a mission statement for Brat, “Von dutch” is the quintessential embodiment of the album’s cocky party-girl persona. Released in February 2024 as the album’s lead single, the song is another braggadocious dance banger — but it’s the only one on the album that, according to Charli, could be considered a diss track. The song comes from the point of view of a pop star with that elusive combination of major success and indie cred. She taunts the listener by rattling off her career accomplishments, bragging about her luxe lifestyle and trashing her target’s reputation (“Do that little dance, without it, you’d be nameless … You won’t fuck unless he famous”).
It’s unclear who the song’s real-life target is — one interesting fan theory is that it’s Charli dissing herself from the perspective of someone she envies — but the specifics of the behind-the-scenes drama feels less important here than on a song like “Girl, so confusing.” “Von dutch” stands on its own as a confidence-boosting club track. Still, the broader narrative around Brat does add relevant context. The mission of Brat is, largely, to humanize women who are often villainized by society (or other women), so this track feels like significant scene-setting. The narrator of “Von dutch” is abrasively cocky; yet her flippant frankness, palpable from the lyric that opens the track — “It’s okay to just admit that you’re jealous of me” — feels like an invitation to engage in the vulnerable emotional expressions that allow for such refreshing catharsis later on the album.
8. Espresso
Sabrina Carpenter
The lead single from Sabrina Carpenter’s sixth album, Short n’ Sweet, “Espresso” is a breezy disco/pop song that’s as addictive as its namesake. With how much this song was pushed on streaming services when it was released last April, it’s probably ranked somewhere on everyone’s year-end lists, whether they liked it or not. But as someone who’s been rooting for her to have her main pop girl moment since she dropped “Almost Love” six years ago, I was obsessed with this song the moment it came out. It was the perfect combination of everything Sabrina does well — playful lyrics, grade-a pop production and tons of girly, flirty charm.
9. Diet Pepsi ⚠
Addison Rae
2024 was the year of the pop girls subverting expectations. The rebranding of Addison Rae is one of the year’s most intriguing examples. After gaining a cult following of pure-pop fans when she released her debut EP in 2023 — AR, a devastatingly small sampling of tracks from her earliest days in the studio — Addison took an unexpected turn with her 2024 single “Diet Pepsi.” The track trades the Britney-era bubblegum of AR for breezy electronic indie pop that leans (much) closer to Lana. Fittingly, the song describes the transformative experience that is coming of age.
Addison’s lyrics have always been clever, playful and smart. Even her much-maligned debut single “Obsessed” showed a certain level of self-awareness of the stereotypical vain, shallow influencer people pegged her as when they first got to know her as a founding member of the now-defunct Tiktok collective Hype House. But “Diet Pepsi” takes her artistry to new heights.
The song is not-so-subtly about having sex for the first time. But — as sex itself so often is — it’s deeper than that. (Sorry, Kelela.) In the verses, she compares her flushed cheeks to “cherries in the spring”; says her lover would “die to see” her body ; describes fog collecting on his car’s windows as she sits “on his lap sippin’ Diet Pepsi.” It’s all very amorous. But seasons change, fruit rots, fog clears, soda goes flat, youth fades and, someday, we die. And so the song’s main refrain — “losing all my innocence in the backseat” — seems to be not simply a euphemism for sex, but also a reference to these difficult truths we all must come to terms with as we enter adulthood. One of those truths is, of course, that young love rarely lasts. Despite her sentimental portrayal of this pivotal moment, Addison knows that — like the pleasing pop and fizz that erupts from a freshly opened can of soda — her summer love is fleeting. That’s perhaps what drives her desperate, yearning plea in the chorus — “Say you love, say you love, say you love me.”
The music video for the single adds additional emotional — and vaguely political — layers. The majority of the clip is in black and white, and takes place inside a car — a time-honored symbol of freedom, especially in American culture. But Addison isn’t at the wheel. Instead, she seductively writhes throughout the interior and teases her man — laying across his lap, kissing his ear, feeding him whipped cream and cherries with her feet from the backseat — as he leans back on the driver’s side — one hand on the wheel the other propped up on the back of the seat beside him — and keeps his eyes fixed on the road. Scenes of Addison dancing and striking poses against a black backdrop are interspersed throughout. During one of these shots, Addison stands with her arms outstretched as an American flag flies into frame, briefly wrapping itself around her head.
As the bridge of the song approaches, the car rolls to a stop and Addison struts out towards the entrance to a gas station. Once inside, she makes a desperate dash to the coolers at the back of the store. She snatches up her prized can of the titular soft drink, holds it up to her face — logo, of course, facing the camera — and gazes at it, mouth agape in excitement, as the track quiets. The silence is broken when she pops open the can, and the video’s grayscale tone immediately turns technicolor as the chorus crescendos in a final refrain and she takes an impassioned first sip, standing tall atop the hood of the car.
Inside the car, Addison continues canoodling with her man and dancing playfully by herself — slapping her ass with a hairbrush, striking a cheeky bodybuilder pose in a pair of black sunglasses — only now, the camera pans out to reveal the interior of the car is staged on an expansive film set. Alas, the intimate moments from the beginning of the video were an illusion. Yet as the full spectrum of the previous scenes is revealed, Addison appears more jubilant than ever. Her teen dream is dead — but in its wake, she is liberated from the fairy tale’s traditional trappings. She is free.
There’s another shot of Addison with the flag — now, she’s wrapped it around her seemingly naked body as she holds herself in her arms and gazes wistfully towards the distance. The whole tragic, romantic Americana thing is overdone to be sure — the Lana influence looms large — but I’m sorry, a beautiful young woman wearing an American flag and looking slightly sad will always be an evocative image. In our current political climate, it’s especially striking. In many ways, our country is going through its own coming of age, as the current U.S. president radically transforms our institutions and challenges tradition in his way — a loss of innocence indeed. It sort of feels like we’re all just trying to keep ourselves covered with the tattered remains of a banner we once hailed, begging to be loved, to be saved, to be infinite.
“Diet Pepsi” represents the sad realization that there is no prince charming, no happily ever after; no hero is coming to save us. But it also suggests that, even in the face of such perilous uncertainty, there are still plenty of pleasures to savor. Fanciful and fleeting as they may be, the fantasies of our youth — and perhaps the mythology of our country and all our fabricated comforts — may offer a few things worth holding onto.
10. Club classics
Charli xcx
Brat isn’t just a great dance record. Part of why it made such a splash is because it is largely a sort of metacommentary on pop stardom and nightlife. This track, released in April 2024 as a promo single along with “B2b”, is the perfect example. Over the obligatory four-on-the-floor dance beat, Charli not only sings about going out dancing, but about wanting to dance to her own music. She also name-drops her producer friends, A.G. Cook, SOPHIE and HudMo, and her now-fiance George Daniel. Despite being so specific to her own experience, the song also works as a love letter to club culture as a whole. Yet the personal details keep the song’s more cliche moments (“Put your hands up and dance … Never gonna’ stop till the morning light”) from feeling dull. In Charli’s hands, they sound less like generic drivel and more like universal truths. The club track tropes and references to her pop star life come together to provide earliest indications of Brat’s emotional heart — pop stars, they’re just like us! Most of us may not literally have our own songs playing when we go out, but we do want to hear our favorite music, and maybe have a main character moment in the dance circle and feel like a pop star for a little bit. And on those nights when the playlist isn’t hitting and the vibes are off, we may embrace our inner brat and bug the DJ all night with requests, the way Charli demands “I wanna’ dance to me, me, me.”