ᴡʀᴀᴘᴘᴇᴅ // unpacked 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟒
21. New Girl
Baby Tate
“New Girl” is a triumphant declaration of newfound abundance — fitting for the opening track of rapper Baby Tate’s ambitious 2019 debut album Girls. The narrator has found herself in “a whole new world” of glamour and luxury. The typical tropes are all here — she’s counting stacks, rocking fresh looks and attending exclusive events. But the song’s unique structure — it’s split up into two (and a half?) distinct parts — and lyrical idiosyncrasies provide plenty of particular pleasures. There are retro references sprinkled throughout the song — Tate says she’s described as “a blast from my past like the ‘80s” and the track ends with an interpolation of an iconic Aaliyah track from 2001 (this is the “half” part) — as well as multiple memorable one-liners and melodic hooks. The song serves not only as a celebration of a new era in the narrator’s life, but also of the music and culture that shaped her exciting new chapter — and Baby Tate’s forward-thinking sound.
22. No Broke Boys
Tinashe
Following up a hit as major as “Nasty” is no small feat, but it’s no surprise Tinashe is up to the task. “No Broke Boys”, the third single from Quantum Baby, acts as something of an addendum to “Nasty” — Tinashe’s partner needs to not only match her freak, but apparently also her 401k contribution. But it’s not all about the Benjamins — the song is primarily a kiss-off to a partner who treated her so poorly, it made her realize her worth:
Why would you try to ever put me second?
You’re just another groupie to me now
I’m out here single and I need something real
Now I got standards, give a fuck how you feel
The track draws on the grand tradition of songs like Blu Cantrell’s “Hit ‘Em Up Style (Oops!)”, TLC’s “No Scrubs” and Janet Jackson’s “Nasty” (which Tinashe’s “Nasty” was also compared to — by the legend herself, no less!), by using wealth and social class as correlatives for respect and stability in romantic relationships. It joins those songs as a top-tier bad bitch anthem and solidifies Tinashe’s status as a cultural force in her own right.
23. Apple
Charli xcx
Did you know that this song that opens with the line, “I guess the apple don’t fall far from the tree” is actually secretly about generational trauma? Who could have guessed!? Seriously, even though this track gained popularity largely due to a viral Tiktok dance, said dance is set to what is arguably the song’s thesis statement, so its meaning is not hard to determine:
I think the apple’s rotten right to the core
From all the things passed down from all the apples coming before
I split the apple down symmetrical lines
And what I find is kind of scary, makes me just want to drive
It’s not a particularly original or obscurant analogy for family dynamics, but Charli maximizes her use of the well-worn metaphor. It’s familial, but it’s also biblical — the apple being a core (pun intended) part of the story of creation and the fall of man. In the bible, the apple represents knowledge, temptation and duality. On “Apple”, Charli is tempted to escape her family’s influence, but it nevertheless looms Godlike. She gains the forbidden knowledge — awareness of the core wound — that provides perspective, but gets her cast out of the paradise that is the patriarchal family unit. It’s pretty basic stuff.
What’s especially interesting is how this narrative relates to the biology of the eponymous fruit, which is surprisingly intriguing. Apples are pome fruits, meaning they have seeds inside their core. Common sense suggests seeds will produce the same fruit they came from, but apple seeds are actually heterozygous, meaning they produce entirely unique fruits. In Wikipedia’s words, “Apples grown from seed tend to be very different from those of their parents, and the resultant fruit frequently lacks desired characteristics.” While this challenges the idea that human personality traits are inherited, it actually mirrors human biology — human children are, of course, not exact clones of their parents — as well as the idiosyncrasies Charli explores on “Apple” — “I know there’s lots of different nuances to you and to me.”
But it’s also, ironically, the entire reason apples have even stronger ties to their origins. Because seed-grown apples are so unreliable, farmers use a technique called grafting to produce the varieties of apples we’ve come to enjoy. The process involves taking a part of the tree whose fruit you want to reproduce and attaching it to an existing tree stump so that they grow together and produce a tree with the desired fruit. This means that common varieties of apples today originate not from the seeds of a parent, but from the roots of singular trees that existed centuries ago. They are literally irrevocably tied to their family tree, the way Charli seems to be.
Yet, that humans are able to manipulate nature to achieve our own means is also a reminder that biology is not destiny — as Charli observes, “I guess the apple could turn yellow or green.” As painful as it is to acknowledge the unsavory similarities we share with our families, digging deep into the seeds of our discontent — the original sin — opens up the possibility of creating an Eden all our own.
24. Head Head Honcho ⚠
Kim Petras
The undue frivolity of songs like “Coconuts” and “Hit It From The Back” caused me existential anguish when they were released in 2021. On her 2022 EP Slut Pop, Kim Petras took her provocative mindlessness to stunning new heights, pairing outrageously profane lyrics with addictively unoriginal dance beats — and I was sold. By the time the 2024 follow-up Slut Pop Miami was announced, I was all-in — it was one of the first albums I pre-saved on Spotify (sorry, Brat). The project is enjoyable (and short) enough to listen to front-to-back, but this song is, in my opinion, the crowning achievement.
Most tracks from the Slut Pop projects sound like extremely condensed versions of European gay club tracks. Which, to be clear, is a huge compliment coming from me. But “Head Head Honcho” is the longest song on Slut Pop Miami, with a more than three-minute runtime (3:01), and it sounds more like something you’d hear at a mall in the 80s — which, again, is a major compliment. The lyrics are simple (“I wanna’ see it ... to believe it”), stupid (“I wanna’ meet your boner”), slutty (“I suck big dicks like every night”) and shocking, even taking a turn for the blasphemous (“I’m a semen Jesus”).
The contrast between the cheerful bubblegum pop sound of the instrumental and the explicitly carnal lyrics — sung, of course, in a singsong medley — is incredibly delightful to listen and sing along to. I may have finally reached full brainrot.