English pop upstart Charli XCX isn’t the sort to sit still. In the last three weeks, she’s released a brand new collaboration with Marina & the Diamonds, remixed Lindstrøm with an assist from TWIN iDoL, and even covered the Backstreet Boys, so it’s nice to be reminded that she released a promising new album, True Romance, only a month ago. One of that sets’ clear standouts is “Take My Hand,” which SPIN’s Puja Patel describes as “a shimmery throwback that reflects on happier days, where tales of sweet hand-holding leave her yearning for sleepless nights and cosmic head-rushes.” Indeed, the takeaway seems to be, “Don’t go to sleep, just go out,” and the brand new Ryan Andrews-directed video explores that theme as a woozy Charli wanders through a surreal club scene complete with cheerleaders, headbangers, electronics-smashing, and flagrant smooching.
In an interview on the Urban Outfitters blog, XCX explains, “I’m like a YouTube freak and so is Ryan … and we’ve been watching a lot of music videos by the Prodigy. And kind of also reflecting [on] where I started as an artist, which was coming up from London when I was 14 and playing these third-wave-of-club-kids kind of parties that were heavily influenced by [the] Party Monster […] era.” Get gritty above.
