Boom Clap

In 2014, good pop music still felt like something to notice. The radio was full of the usual machinery, but Charli XCX kept showing up with actual ideas in her head. She landed Boom Clap as the title track for The Fault in Our Stars, a film I had no interest in watching, but the song itself was sharp in a way that mattered—nervy production, the melody played with rather than just ridden.

Charli was into Tokio Hotel, into Iggy Azalea, into the stuff that lived in the margins. That’s where the interesting artists always look first. And you could hear it in Boom Clap—not a song made by committee, but by someone with taste. The hooks worked because they were actually thought about, not because focus groups had beaten them into submission.

There’s something about an artist who cares about the thing itself rather than what the machinery promises the thing will do for you. In 2014 that still felt rare enough to matter. I didn’t think it would change anything. I didn’t need it to. I just needed pop music that was actually good, made by someone who was paying attention.

The song stuck around longer than it probably should have, which was fine by me.