Thudding yet bouncy synths are the foundation of the single, a regular element in Charli's recent music with producer and P.C. Music founder A.G. Cook (who co-produced "Gone" with Ö and Lotus IV). Charli sings first, with a verse detailing feelings of isolation and animosity at a party. The pre-chorus follows, highlighting one of Charli XCX's great songwriting talents: her ability to bounce syllables in and out of rhythm with production. Her melody drives the proclamations in perfect syncopation ("I feel so unstable, fucking hate these people/How they making me feel lately/They making me weird, baby, lately"). Charli's ability to fit angular and complex lyrics in (and through) very commercial beats is one of her virtues and this carries over to the hyper-poetic chorus, a series of questions sung in rhetorical duet.
Why do we keep when the water runs?Why do we love if we're so mistaken?Why do we leave when the chase is done?Don't search me in here, I'm already gone, babyWhy do we keep when the water runs?Why do we love?
The very ornate lyrics were written mostly by Christine and she sings solo on the second verse with phrases about partying that could only ever exist on a Charli XCX/Christine and the Queens collab ("Am I a smoke?/Am I the sun?/And who decides?"). The chorus returns and the track builds to a thudding, clicking breakdown of chopped-up vocals and deep, undulating synths. A quiet, shimmering SOPHIE-esque synth melody adds just another complication to the arch creation already at hand.
While Christine takes the lead lyrically, the song (like many of Charli's collaborations over the last two years) still fits under Charli's recent house style. Here, Charli is as much curator as pop star. The song was born out of sessions between Charli, frequent Charli co-writer Noonie Bao and producer Lotus IV. Charli then sent a rough draft of the song to Christine, Christine provided lyrics and Charli brought in A.G. Cook (who has been her most significant collaborator of the past three years) to help with production.
How precisely "the sausage was made" usually stays behind closed doors on a major label release but it’s clear Charli is the point of convergence. More than even most pop stars, her artistic identity is often declared most by her choice of collaborators. Her constantly rotating cavalcade of co-writers, producers and featured artists allow Charli to constantly push her own songwriting in new, boundless directions. Charli’s Vroom Vroom EP, produced by SOPHIE and released in 2016, was a violent expansion of what experimental pop music was and could be. Each project released by Charli since has followed in Vroom Vroom’s footsteps: disrupting, cannibalizing and inverting pop music. “Gone” is a sign of hope that Charli will do the same.
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The accompanying music video was directed by Colin Solal Cardo, who also recently made the lovely Ever Again video for Robyn. It features Charli and Christine initially tied down against a generic sedan (surely the most unsexy car that's ever been in a Charli video), two women bound to the same machine. As the ode to loneliness continues, the women start to break free, helping each other escape their confines and then dance with (and for) each other.
The visual makeup of the video is often frustratingly bound by convention to ever feel truly groundbreaking, with lazily-conjured effects (fire, rain, smoke and sparks) that add visual texture but stale quickly. This limitation is only amplified by the fact that Charli and Christine have incredible chemistry, their energy feeding and stoking each other, giving the very physical video a compassionate (and homoerotic) warmth. The video ultimately works, but only due to their magnetism that creates a unique space for catharsis, empathy and intimacy between two talented female performers.
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