Hey, buddy, did you hear the news? It's track reviews.

Hi, everyone. Brathony Brattano here, the internet's busiest music nerd, and it's time for a track review, a track reaction, because this Charli XCX album cycle is the gift that keeps on giving.

Not only is the record just full of bangers, amazing production, high energy, good catchy tunes. It's just endlessly repeatable. We also got three highly entertaining extra tracks after the release of the album. And now, additionally, we're getting remixes with features on them. The first of which seems to be this new version of "Girl, So Confusing," which from the album's tracklist was a highly discussed song because of the lyrics held within very clearly being about a specific person with Charli singing about their hair and their proclivity for writing poetry and the various personality differences between the two of them and whether or not they could be friends or if they should collaborate. Also how these perceived gaps in personality, in style, in everything can make it difficult being a woman who is trying to be a friend to other women. Again, a lot of questions and a lot of people wondering and theorizing in terms of who this song is about.

Charli was also cited in an interview not too long ago saying that she wasn't quite ready around the album's release to say who the track is about. But with this remix here, we more or less have confirmation that the track is, in fact, about Lorde, or at least in terms of the details held within the song, Lorde pretty much fits the description. She's at least a decent vessel for the archetype being painted within the track. Now this remix is out and about, and it's certainly going to be interesting for me to hear that if with Lorde, Charli is able to expand the narrative of this song and bring it an even deeper meaning than it had before, maybe make it catchy here. Who knows? Let's see how Lorde's performance and her lyrical contributions to the track shape up.

So here we go. the "Girl, So Confusing" version with Lorde. Let's give it a spin.

Well, that was endearing. Jeez. Wow. Okay. I don't want to be sad today. Well, that actually added more to the context of the song than I actually thought. And look, if this song is coming from a real place and the track was actually about Lorde to begin with, obviously great and commendable and cool. But even if this was all just conceptualized and it's just Charli and Lorde playing into an idea, really even more impressive that they're able to channel what they do on this track and have it have the emotional impact that it does.

On this additional verse from Lorde, you really do hear her side of the story and you get an understanding of how these social and personal misfires can be chalked up to misunderstandings, or maybe it's all coming from a place of insecurity. You're making plans, they're falling through, or you're canceling because you're not feeling well, or you're in your own head, you're overthinking. The other person might presume it's something personal or something like that when really it's just the other person avoiding over personal shortcomings that they're experiencing or or, again, insecurities. And the hatchet just ends up getting buried as a result of one person being honest and opening up to the other and telling them how they feel, and that's great. That's beautiful.

I hope more people can hear this song and take a note from it in terms of how they could or should approach such social situations in the future. Maybe there would be less beef and tension in the world if we were honest with each other and on the level with each other in terms of how we are feeling about one another rather than just bottling it up, not sharing, not asking the other person, and making presumptions on their thoughts based off of actions or behaviors that we may not be interpreting accurately.

Now, of course, it could always be sometimes that there are people out there who actually do fucking hate you and they're assholes. But maybe it's best to open up that conversation and hear that straight from the horse's mouth making a potentially false presumption. Because I think also what this track gets to the heart of is that allowing that to go on and to fester can create resentment over time.

Also, there are things like industry spin that can contribute to this, too, especially when you're in the public eye and the audience out there may have assumptions themselves in terms of what artist, what singer, what producer, whatever ever doesn't like this other person, doesn't fuck with this other person. I feel like there's been a lot of cause to think about this very topic, especially in the wake of the Kendrick Lamar and Drake beef, and really everything that has transpired up until that point. I mean, while certainly there is a time and a place for that thing, and as long as it comes down to artistic merits, there's nothing wrong with some healthy competition.

For example, when I recently did my gigantic hour-long diss track teir list video, it was interesting going back into the history of some of these tracks and coming to understand that some of these songs, some of these beefs, initially were based on complete misunderstandings. And rather than reaching out or smoothing things over or doing something to fix it, shit just got escalated. And here we have Charli and Lorde turning down the tensions instead, which is admirable, especially in a time in a context where it feels like among the fans, among the stands, especially on Twitter, there's more hatred being thrown around back and forth between various fandom groups of whatever rapper, whatever pop singer, whatever artist out there today.

So very cool. The "Girl So Confusing" version with Lorde is fantastic, and I'm liking this a lot. Again, before I even heard it, I will repeat what I said earlier: It's the album cycle that keeps on giving.

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Anthony Fantano, "Girl, Not So Confusing," Forever.