October 12, 2018

Charli XCX’s Newest Single Will Take You Back to the Bliss of 1999

The Matrix, Titanic, CD’s, and Britney Spears make their overdue comeback in this week’s Friday Find

Charli XCX (YouTube)

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It’s Friday, and the perfect time to take a little weekend trip. But our getaway isn’t a physical destination—Paris, LA, the beach—but rather we are going back in time. On this week’s installment of “Friday Find,” our weekly music pick featuring a track, record, or artist we’re jamming to, we’re escaping into nostalgia.

Our choice this week: “1999” by Charli XCX & Troye Sivan ( Single, “1999,” Charli XCX & Troye Sivan, Asylum Records, 2018)

Why we’re into it: Enough with 2018. Let’s be transported to a happier time by some banging beats.

Just take inventory of what’s most important to understand why we love this. Nostalgic pop references? Check. Bouncing beats? Check. A certified bop? Check. Charli XCX does what she does best with  “1999″: she crafts a track that is accessible pop of the best kind, yet with an unexpected edge. The last release of her summer single series—which included the other certified bops “No Angel,” “Focus”, “5 in the Morning,” and “Girls Night Out”—came out last week and has already become one of XCX’s more popular tunes.

I could go on and on about Charli XCX and her unique place in pop music, but we’re here to talk about “1999.” The cover of the single—a Matrix inspired piece of work—makes it clear this song has noble roots. References to Britney’s early hits, Justin Timberlake on MTV, The Matrix, and Michael Jackson are only some 1999 nostalgia the two singers touch on. Written by XCX and Sivan, the track creates a delicate balance between the yearning to return to childhood, and the adult ache of wanting a space when things were just simpler. 

“No cares/ I was dumb and so young,” they sing together, “I just wanna go back/sing ‘Hit me baby, one more time.’” Who doesn’t resonate with that pure young-adult bliss of being dumb and young, blasting music in your room, screaming the words to your favorite pop hits? The video only makes the song better as it leans right into the nostalgia of the last year of the 20th century. Spice girls, Backstreet Boys, and the movies The Matrix and Titanic, all incorporated by Sivan and XCX in front of the familiar green screen of the 90’s.

But nostalgia is more than just wallowing in memories of “back then,” it’s the almost tangible feeling of actually inhabiting the past moments when our worries were so different from what they are today. The sheer purity of happier times, that’s what “1999″ embodies. But this track is more than just a longing for the past. Its beats, production, and tone are purely from right now. 

This juxtaposition of both nostalgia and up-to-the-minute revelry of the present make this the find for our October Friday. It’s not just a song but a necessary state of mind. We need to rejoice in the past that made us while being very present, even when that present can be so painful and malicious.

So enjoy your weekend, take a little journey without leaving home, and full experience your present moments. Happy Friday.

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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