Have you considered that non-meaning is the point?

By reimagining the functions of the components of pop music, Charli XCX undermines the purported identity between compositional placement and function. Heard in conjunction with the percussive synths, the flat credo of performed confidence – “Let’s ride” – forms an aesthetic alliance with McKenzie Wark and her noting that “Perhaps what is pretty is instead displacing this whole idea of appearances as a cover for some essence. Perhaps what is pretty need not be seen as hiding something, as damaged goods, but as a gift, as offering the possibility of stepping outside of exchange value.” “Pretty” is an aesthetic that does not set out to hide anything.

This is possibly quite counterintuitive. Interpretation of music is, generally, guided towards determining meanings and relations of a composition, of investigating what the sounds point towards that lies beyond its brute presentation, what emotions a melody might be connected to, how lyrics are manifested in sounds, sounds in lyrics etc. By introducing exchange value as a mode of aesthetic engagement, Wark identifies both the trouble and the political potential of “Pretty”, an analysis much interesting in the case of “Vroom Vroom”.

The Marxian concept of exchange value describes what a certain commodity is worth on a market. From this follows, according to Wark, a masculine logic obsessing about possessing and abusing, facilitated by treating appearance as a cover-up for essence. At the market, this manifests in a compulsion of making sure to get what you bought, to control that the appearance of the commodity is actually at par with what you are paying for it. As expected, a paranoia of always being at risk of deception follows. The “pretty” not only rejects this paranoid capitalist logic of extractive investigation, but more importantly, it sets out to preclude its very possibility.

The Party Bolshevism of Charli XCX and SOPIHE on “Vroom Vroom” is a study in the composition of “pretty” music. One could say that this music is composed in such a pretty way that it excludes and wryly shrugs it off when anything attempts to impose a logic of exchange value onto it, or treats it as if it were hiding something – treating it as if the appearance were a camouflage for an essence or meaning. Whole swathes of music criticism have made themselves dependent on arguments based on the unfolding of “hidden” meanings. But such criticism is often ignorant of the work at hand and heedlessly applies an intrusive, standardized questionnaire.

There is simply no way to engage with the lyrics “Let’s ride” as something other than a percussive slogan of confidence. Any textual interpretations are condemned to end up shadow boxing with a [straw person], probably quite aware of the fact that there is nothing much to decipher, yet committed to extract meaning. Of course, the exclamation as such does not call for a listening along “pretty” lines, but in the composition of the track it does. In “Vroom Vroom”, when the credo is coupled with the reimagined functionalities of the arrangement, the pretty is our tool in the first instance. However, because we can see that the lyrics are nothing but percussive propulsion and an explicit vocal power pose, anyone trying to frame the conjoined arrangement of voice, synth and the faint hi-hats as a deconstruction of their functionalities would be shadowboxing as well. Indeed, “Let’s ride” is a statement too sparse, too performative to be held in isolation.

Following from this, to speak about how certain strands of pop challenges notions of the assigned functions and essences of instrumental arrangement in the same sentence as “Let’s Ride” is to detach the lyrics from the musical composition and vice versa. “Let’s Ride” is not about contrasting sparse lyrical content to maximalist, syncopated synths, but wielded in the same form of overtness.

In both of these examples, a projection of an exchange value logic implicitly holds the appearance that some essence is hidden in the song. What marks the compositional ingenuity of “Vroom Vroom” is that such accounts can never accurately describe what is going on in this track. The song will shrug away, leaving such interpellation alone with its unidirectional and intrusive quest for what the track actually was getting at and, if none is found, calling it out as a deception. To paraphrase Wark’s discussion of “pretty” in relation to self-presentation by transgender people – for the intrusive gaze, the lyrics might hide percussion and the synth might hide lyrics, but in fact, nothing is hidden.