Saturday Flashback: Charli XCX – Boom Clap

“One of 2014’s best songs.”

Tim: So, first flashback of 2015, let’s have one of 2014’s best songs, shall we?

Tom: Okay, so this is where I own up: I’ve never actually heard this all the way through. I picked up bits of it from various radio stations and background noise, but I’ll be coming to this as if it was new.

Tim: Starts as it means to go on, dips down for the verses but then comes back with a quite literal BOOM and CLAP for a stonking —

Tom: “Stonking”?

Tim: — yes, STONKING chorus that perfectly captures what the song’s about: the start of a relationship with someone new, who gets you going, who you’re enthralled with, who you can’t stop getting excited about when you think about them.

Tom: It’s good. I’ll grant you it’s good. But I just can’t get as excited about it. Is it because I’ve only heard it a couple of times, and it hasn’t had a chance to get into my head as an earworm?

Tim: And it’s not just the chorus – the entire song is very fast: we’ve got the standard two verses, two choruses, fully fledged middle eight and four (four!) repetitions of the chorus to close, and we’re all done in 2:47. Is it too short? No – the length is perfect.

Tom: That’s true: it’d definitely overstay its welcome if it were any longer. And I can see the appeal, even if it doesn’t quite work for me.

Tim: Everything that should be there is there, and if there was more, with that speed it might be too much. As it is, though: let’s just push play again anyway.