Charli XCX’s guilty confession about her own track ‘1999’
The all-consuming hedonism of Charli XCX’s Brat will live forever, but true fans know that the British singer-songwriter has always had a talent for subverting reality, foretelling the future in her unique blend of past and present dance and electropop.
Growing within the sleazy, Myspace blogger underground of club music, a subculture where every synthesised beat sounded like it could blend with the next, Charli made her mark on the London rave scene by expounding something different from her sonic visions. Her early work offered a glimpse of something radical and, despite Brat finally being the work to ‘break’ her into the mainstream just last year, she has been a pillar of pop music for nearly two decades. Brat was to be her neon green-tinted opus, but its roots have always existed, grounding her entire discography.
In 2018, fans would get a taste of what was to come on Brat when Charli announced a collaboration with South African-Australian pop singer Troye Sivan. Compared to his earlier bedroom pop sound, the year saw a shift in Sivan’s sound into dance and electronic territory, making the match between the two fated to happen. Envisioning a Eurodance sound, their brainpower produced ‘1999’, a lighthearted song about nostalgia for a time just before the new millennium. “I just wanna go back / Back to 1999,” Charli echoes in the opening, backed by the thump of synths that mimic a sort of Y2K computerised beat, sounding like the start-up of an early iteration of a Macbook.
The lyrics are laden with nostalgic references to the popular culture of the 1990s, yearning for a time when music listening was confined to CDs, Nike Airs were staples in one’s wardrobe, and Britney Spears’ ‘Baby, One More Time’ dominated the charts. “Never under pressure / Those days, it was so much better,” Charli muses, “Wish that we could go back in time… Maybe we can do it tonight / Tonight’s the night”. A sort of sonic time traveller herself, she understands the power of nostalgia all too well, but she also knows that an evocative reinterpretation of the past (not just its shallow depiction) is essential.
Sivan’s verses capture this sentiment, too, as he reminisces: “I remember back home / Best friends, all night, no phone / No cares, I was dumb and so young”. The emphasis not just on nostalgia, but specifically on youth, is key to the charm of ‘1999’, where later in the song, he admits, “I know those days are over but a boy can fantasise / ‘Bout JTT on MTV and when I close my e-e-eyes”, namechecking child actor Jonathan Taylor Thomas, whose posters were plastered on the walls of every 1990s kid.
The reference is the only one not to resonate in Charli’s nostalgic consciousness, however, as the singer admitted to Genius, “Troye wrote this part. And I didn’t know who JTT was. This is terrible. This is my song. I didn’t even know”. She continued to explain that she mixed up one “JT” for another, thinking, “it was just like Justin Timberlake Timberlake or something. Like he was trying to fill the syllables. But I did another interview earlier, and they’re like, ‘No. It’s that guy.’ And I was like, ‘Oh?’ And they showed me a picture. I didn’t recognise him. I’m so sorry. I don’t know. I don’t know!”
If anyone could find the humour in the situation, it’s Charli and Sivan, who leaned into the campy remembrance of a bygone era with a music video jam-packed with visual references from the ’90s. The duo place themselves in the decades’ historical touchpoints, posing as Jack and Rose in Titanic, performing as all five members of the Spice Girls and the Backstreet Boys, respectively, superimposing themselves into Skechers sneaker advertisements and more.
‘1999’ marked the beginning of Charli and Sivan establishing their own universe, with the two going on to co-headline their Sweat tour in 2024, and Sivan was roped in to sing on the remixed version of Charli’s ‘Talk Talk’ for the Brat but different album. But before the pair were some of the most prolific names in modern pop music, they were busy transporting themselves back to a simpler time.
