Like a movie straight out of the Tubi, Lobotomy-pop duo Coco & Clair Clair are low-budget, resourceful, comically ambitious. They are super fun, super dumb. Theirs is a show of bad taste and brainlessness, a reaction and antidote to pseudo-intellectualism. While they grew up listening to John Maus and Bill Callahan in the suburbs of Atlanta, the music they make now is closer to the spirit of the Black Eyed Peas. In the world of Coco & Clair Clair, impudence is next to piety.
Since at least 2021, when singer and TikToker Chrissy Chlapecka tagged a clip #bimbocore and helped ignite a trend, the popular It Girl has described herself as an irreverent ditz, a “daughter,” inhabitant of the immortal world of Barbie. This summer, Charli XCX BRAT complicated this dominant mode, finding a certain truth behind the performance and moving towards seriousness with songs like “Girl, so confusing” and “I think about it all the time”. With their third album, GirlCoco and Clair Clair take their barbed jokes and sassy attitude so far that they land on the other side of irreverence.
Girl it could easily meet a predictable rom-com ending – a mere domestication of the sharp cut – but instead it feels genuinely gritty, as if they've created a closer relationship to the truth without sacrificing their comic absurdity. “I'm too rare for Raya, stop inviting me, motherfucker,” Claire Claire raps on “Kate Spade.” On previous albums the pairing was unsightly and impervious to romance, but it continued Girl they dare to be tender, even patient. They say they've recovered discarded lyrics they once thought too personal to share. A possible suspect: “Do you see me the way I want you to see me?/Will you think I'm cool if I see this movie?” Clair Clair raps nervously on “Gorgeous International Really Lucky.”
Girl it's also more structurally sound than anything they've done before, the production crisper and less self-consciously lo-fi. This is mainly because they lean unashamedly into pastiche. “Martini” sounds like a cloud rap type beat. “Everyone But You” as Dean Blunt samples Incubus. “My Girl” as a tribute to Crystal Castles. The wide-ranging approach to musical influences highlights their knack for summoning the ghost of an original and then using oddly specific lyricism to challenge its formula. It's so funny to hear, for example, Koko rapping something as plainly ridiculous as “Don't come catch me with that damn fucking beak” on the opium-addled “Bitches Pt. 2.”
Whatever style they play, Coco & Clair Clair have a clear knack for finding their most naive, exuberant sides. You can hear this best on the album's main highlight: a breakbeat cover of “Our House” by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. It sounds hilarious (and it is), but it's also strangely touching. Its incredible emotional appeal is reminiscent of a Xavier Dolan scene mama, when the protagonist skates a “Wonderwall” needle drop and appears to expand the aspect ratio with his hands. “Our House” is Coco & Clair Clair's big screen moment – when what was initially mistaken for irony deepens into sincerity, the confusion of emotions and cultural associations giving way to an authentic, unfettered response to art. On Girl, Coco & Clair Clair showcases a more refined musical and emotional palette while retaining the allure of bedroom hobbyists. Finally, they have everything a woman could want.
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