Switched on Pop - Charli XCX threw this party 4 us

Episode Date: May 27, 2025

Five years ago, Charli XCX released the track "party 4 u," a melancholic ode to throwing a function for that one specific person. Now, in 2025, the song has gotten a renewed life – motivated by a foolproof cocktail of TikTok trends, the Billboard Hot 100, and a post-Brat Summer clamor for Charli. It's rare for pop songs like this to get a second wind. So, on this episode of Switched On Pop, Reanna, Nate, and Charlie put on our detective hats on to dissect the five-minute song's vocals, textures, and structures to understand just why people are reconnecting with it, half a decade later. Songs discussed: Charli XCX – party 4 u Charli XCX – claws Charli XCX – 4 in the Morning Charli XCX – anthems Lesley Gore – It's My Party Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you're tired of endless scrolling to figure out where to eat, same. I'm Stephanie Wu, editor-in-chief of Eater. We've just launched the new-ish and way better Eater app. It has all the restaurants we love, gives you personalized picks wherever you are, and serves up smarter search results just for you. You can find my list of the best places for martinis and fries in New York City. And save your favorite spots, share lists, follow editors, and book right in the app. the Eater app at Eaterapp.com. It's free for iOS users. Welcome to Switchdown Pop. I'm producer

Rianna Cruz. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding and I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. So I went to Coachella this year and while I was there, Pop Music's It Girl Charlie X-CX took the stage and very loudly and publicly declared that the theme of last year as we know it is dead and gone. Brat Summer is officially over. Rana, you should probably refresh Nate who, uh, sometimes keeps his head under a rock about these major cultural trends, Brett Summer. I object and reject the assertion. I am well aware of Brat Summer, the phenomenon surrounding Charlie X, CX's lime, or slime green, I should say, album of the same title, which birthed such summer hits as 360, 365, Club Classics,

which resulted in the regrettable perhaps tweet, Kamala is Brat, which entered the Zytegai Sinai in a way few pop albums have in the past. So the fact that its creator was indicating the death knell of this phenomenon seems significant. How did I do? I'm impressed. You forgot Von Dutch, but that's Von Dutch, yes. Charlie, nay, worry not. In the wake of Brat's summer, a phoenix has risen from the ashes of Charlie X, X, X, X's deep catalog.

What lies next for Charlie might just come from her past. And I'm talking about her 2020 song, Party for You. Now you might be wondering, what relevance does this song have in 2025? Half a decade after its release. Turns out a whole lot. Back in February, the song started going viral on TikTok, kind of out of nowhere. It's not clear who started it, but it's kind of impossible to avoid all the Party for You lip sings and explainer videos and dance videos. And Charlie's Coachella performance likely gave the song another boost.

She performed it there to the point where earlier this month, Atlantic Records released it as a single to U.S. contemporary hit radio. And Party For You is currently spending its fifth week charting on the Billboard Hot 100. and Charlie recorded and released a music video all this very month. Wait, a music video released five years after the original release date of a song. This feels very uncanny. I feel like songs only chart after the fact if there's like a major re-release where somebody dies. I mean, maybe it's a testament to Charlie XX being the hottest thing in pop music right now. I think she's the hottest underdog in pop music.

That's her thing. She's been the underdog since 2014 when she broke out with fancy, I love it, boom clap, those string of hits. She hasn't ever hit that commercial peak since. For the last decade, she's been making this underground hyperpop, experimenting with the PC music label. And even though last summer was Brat Summer and it may still be continuing, she's never found that same level of chart success,

even though her brand success is far up pacing her current commercial appeal. Right, which is surprising the people like me who have been on on the Charlie train for over a decade. I'm kind of confused by why Party for You is so big, and it's doing something, like you said, that doesn't usually happen on the charts. So today, I want to put my detective hat on and investigate why Party for You specifically has gotten this second life. Why is the song having a moment, and why does it compel this renewed interest five years after its release? As someone who's been on the Charlie train for nearly four decades, very excited about this. Yes, that was a joke about my name. I clocked. I'm sorry. A deer stalker cap is the

thing that Sherlock Holmes wears. So maybe that's what you're putting on, Rihanna. I know Charlie would prefer to be a Von Dutch cap, but I think it has to be a deer stalker. Yeah, I'm also grabbing my pipe and my magnifying glass, because I feel like those are other Sherlockian elements to take you on this journey. Key investigative accoutrements, which is essential because Rihanna, like, how did we get here? Why this song? Why party for you? Yeah, I'd love to set the stage. This song was released in 2020 off of Charlie's fourth record titled How I'm Feeling Now. So let's take it back a few years and I'm asking you guys to do a hard thing. Put yourselves in the collective trauma, perhaps. That was the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Oof, tough moment. We all were on collective

lockdown. I was in college at that time, and I know I was firmly in the same pocket as Charlie X-E-X was, doing Zoom raves, feeling creatively stymied, needing an outlet of some sorts. And some people made bread, some people made whipped coffee. I know I was there. Charlie X-CX made an album. When I think of art from 2020, that period in my life, a few records come to mind. Dool-A-Lieba's future nostalgia, which came out at the end of that March, Lady Gaga's Chromatica, which came out soon after, and Charlie X-E-X is how I'm feeling now. But how I'm feeling now was different because it was kind of the first piece of notable art that was stemming from the pandemic and being locked inside the house. It was made entirely during those first few weeks

of lockdown. And I remember watching Charlie live stream the entire process of making this record. Wait, she Twitch streamed the making of this album. It was mostly on Instagram. live. But yeah, people would give their input on her lyrics and the track list. She looped the fans in every step of the process. There were numbers that you could text and get lyrics for future songs on the record. It was a really collaborative process that eventually got documented in a feature-length documentary, but the way she constructed this album was really interactive. I actually spoke with A.G. Cook, her collaborative producing partner who executive produced this record. around that same time.

And I remember learning that he basically had to drop ship all this gear to Charlie XX to make the record in her home. She typically would go to studios and other people's places. And so she set up her own interface and they were like teaching each other how to produce remotely over Zoom as so many other people were doing. I feel like in that way, it was very relatable. She was literally making this work from her home living room with her friends over Zoom. And then I guess the entire community of fans at the same time.

And the visual aesthetic of the album supported that. The cover photo is her in her underwear, lying on her bed, holding a vintage camcorder, how I'm feeling now. There's something very DIY and approachable about it. And the lyrics on most of the record supported these pandemic themes. There are songs about wanting to go back to the club. There are songs about wanting to see your friends. And at the time this record was being released,

the song that took off from the album was the track Clause. But flash forward five years to 2025, and Claws has been dwarfed in streams by Party for You, and notably has become the audio for a massive TikTok trend. Oftentimes with TikToks, there's like a short bit being used for memes, you know, the 15-second snippet. But every part of the song is being used in different ways on TikTok. It's fascinating. And I think I've figured out why this song is successful. There's a few elements going on here. First and foremost, right off the bat,

I'm going to say that this song is extremely hook-heavy. Charlie X-E-X has always been good at writing hooks. It's one of her strong suits. This song is filled to the brim with singable melodies. It's a masterclass in ear-wormery. Taking it right from the top, the chorus starts off the song. Don't porous. Get to the chorus. The melody of the chorus almost sounds nursery,

I'm like, it's sung so plainly and it's so simple. Anybody can listen to it and sing along. It's not very complicated by any means. Yeah, I feel like that's true of the rhyme scheme as well. Party for you, party for you, party for you. I just want you to come through. Party for you. It's very, like, elementary. Not in a bad way, but in a very hooky way, I think. Right. We're not using big words. We're not using large rhymes. It's very simple. And I think it reflects the nature of the records construction. You know, it came together in such a short amount of time under such strenuous circumstances. It feels very haphazard, but not in a way that's off-putting. It's inviting. I agree. It's first draft pop. The way Charlie described her lyric writing on Brat as like a text

message turned into a song. It's very direct, and that's the point of it. And I think it's aided by her usage of autotune. It turns this kind of style of singing into something more melodic. It doesn't really feel like there's much strain on her vocals. It's coming very easy to her and it's communicated easily. Everything in this song is hooky. Even the verses. Let's go to the first verse of the song.

It's so naked. I feel like the verse really captures the feeling of this song. Her voice is reverberant. Like she's in the foyer of this giant home where she's going to throw this party. The foyer? Foyer. I think it's the foyer. You've got to get French up in here.

I have a foyer. You have a foyer. We'll let that be. This party is a solitary party, which is appropriate for its time. People are feeling stuck, alone, under lockdown. But she's singing from this perspective of partying by herself, which has so many layers of potential meaning. One is she's writing this for her fans.

there's a lot of fan service. I only made this party for you. I made this hit for you or making it together live stream. The cavernous sound in the verse also brings about this feeling of often what a party is really for. It's like you throw a party,

but actually you've got this big crush on this one person and the party's really only for them and you're hoping they're going to come through this party and nothing about this party is fun even if there are other people there, you feel entirely alone until you get their attention. And so I think the song,

just in its sonics, here in this verse, is telling us so much about the emotional state. This is not just a silly party anthem. It's much deeper than that. I feel like it's also mining a vein of pop music that goes back to the 1960s hit by Leslie Gore. It's My Party and I'll cry if I want to. I mean, this is an eternal feeling, right? I'm at this party, but why am I not happy?

And that song has that same giant, reverberant kind of vocal. Also nursery Rymish. This is why we count on you, Dr. Sloan. That musicology background. What a fun connection. And I'm looking at the structure of the Leslie Gore song right now, and everything is in service of this chorus. Same thing's happening here in Party for You.

Everything revolves around the hook. And everything that isn't a chorus feels like it's directly in service of the chorus. The verse feels more like a pre-chorus. One thousand pink balloons, DJ. It's like a ball that just keeps rolling and rolling and rolling and rolling and it doesn't stop. Yeah, I think we're getting that sound from the baseline and from the arpeggiated synth. Both feel like they're rising and rising and rising. It's very common for the bass to sort of go up and down, follow the root notes,

or maybe continuously move downwards. This baseline, up until the very end of the phrase, just keeps rising and rising and rising. You feel like you're inflating moving up like these pink balloons. bum, bum, bum, bum. Now you do the arpeggios, Charlie. Two, three, four. Boom, boom, boom, boom. Higher Charlie. Boom, bum, bum, but I need falsetto. Bum, bum, da, do, do. There we go. Yeah.

Okay. Charlie could keep it together to get through that. It would have been incredibly effective, but listeners will have to imagine it. I was in the C tier of my acapella group. You were the beatboxer. That's a revelation. I don't know if this has ever been admitted in the 10 years of switched on pop history. I was indeed in an a cappella group, but they put me in the back because I was really bad. Was that the

jabber walks or the bare necessities or the troublemakers? What are we talking about here, Charlie? Here comes trouble. No, no, no. This isn't high school. I don't... Oh, so Glee Club. No, it was a true aquapella group.

Well, bringing it back to party for you. I feel like... That was needed. I know that I just like really ended the party there. Once the alchapella group starts, I'm so sorry for all my friends who love acapella, it's wonderful, but it can really, like, oh, no, here they come. They're starting to sing.

All right, party for you. Well, juxtaposing party for you with acapella. Charlie XX is doing the complete opposite of the acapella vocal. She's doing a mix of speak singing. It's almost like rapping, but it's this lax delivery that doesn't require much vocal dexterity. And Charlie does it a lot in this era of her career. particular. There's a similar cadence on this trap track of hers called Five in the Morning. And even on the same record as Party for You, how I'm feeling now, the song Anthems contains

this similar delivery. It's bouncy and the auto tune is advantageous because it allows Charlie to create her own vocal texture while keeping things hooky and not giving much effort. I think this contributes to Charlie's image writ large because her aesthetic is so effortlessly curated. You know, she walks around on stage with a wine glass and not much else. Like, it's very simple. And this delivery is in service of that. I would say that it is effortful effortlessness.

There's a lot of thought and work and years of experience getting put into this work. I even feel like when we hear the second verse, you get this. this sort of like endless motor-like rhythm. I think she's working really hard. I want you to hold that thought, Charlie, because we're going to get to the second verse later. Okay. I want to talk about another element of the song

that contributes to its success, and that's its deep and distinct sonic texture. We talked about the way that the synthesizers sound in this first verse. But the song, a co-production with British producer, A.G. Cook, is also successful because it doesn't really sound, like much else. It's a track that's extremely different from what's happening in mainstream pop,

and there's a certain draw to these foreign textures that Cook brings to the track. I want to start from the beginning. Right from the get-go, we have the shimmering arpeggiated synth that Charlie Harding tried and failed to... No, no, no.

It's Charlie not X-E-X, just to be clear. She's Charlie X-E-X, I'm Charlie, not X-E-X. Either way, you tried and failed to recreate... this synth sound. We have an intro here that's very simple. We're kind of put into this atmospheric space with this arpeggiated synth that's giving us this texture that I really don't know how to describe other than shiny.

I think that these arpeggios have a sort of uncanny valley quality to them. They sound almost like a real instrument, but also obviously synthesize. A lot of A.G. Cook's sounds draw on the sonics of old 90s keyboard workstations that would have very little sample space on them. And so they would only have like a couple of samples of ooze, oz, as strings. And these synths would layer those samples with synthesized sounds to try to create the facsimile of a real sound. It's called PCM synthesis. And I don't know if that's where they got PC music maybe.

I don't even know. I'm speculating here. But PCM synthesis was a way of trying to make real sounds, but they never quite sounded real. And so if you listen to especially like live recordings of your favorite band that had just a keyboardist trying to play horns or strings, they always sounded kind of cheesy. Yeah. Well, A.G. Cook, Charlie X.X. X. They love these cheesy, unreal, uncanny valley kind of sounds. And so that's what we get at the very beginning. This glittery kind of real, kind of synthesized, puts you in this dream like no man's land. That's so fascinating. It's a sound that lies in the past because I find it very futuristic.

Back to the future, baby. There's a cool rhythmic thing happening as well. It's just form. measures of four beats, so 16 beats, but the way they're divided up is like, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 4. So there's like, kind of this odd division that keeps it rhythmically interesting, even when there's not a lot happening at the beginning of the song. So we have these uncanny-valley PCM sounds, these rolling rhythms that are making us feel threes and fours at the same time. It's very unnerving to begin with.

We're starting from an unsubtle place. Yeah, it's not matching the title. It's like, I'm here for the party. Where's the party at? Well, maybe the next element gives more of a party vibe. When Charlie's voice comes in to sing that first chorus, we get this muted bass drum that comes in behind her. That's like a layer.

of a sub 808 with what sounds like maybe a floor tom from a drum kit. Right. It has almost sort of like a war-like kind of sound. I always associate the tombs with like, going into war. Sometimes you'd have the snare rolling along too, but there's something very aggressive about the floor tom. This sound is kind of my favorite production element in this entire piece.

It carries us through the track. And this layering that you described Charlie makes it sound both, far away and muted. Like you're hearing it through a wall, right? Like with this party theme, it's like you're in the bathroom having a moment to yourself where you're getting in touch with your sensitive side while music is booming in the living room or like it's your neighbor's party and you're overhearing the kind of muffled bass coming through the next wall all over. Yeah, if you're DJ Kostanza and you get invited to the party, you need a moment to yourself in the bathroom. I get it. If you're Charlie not XX, you didn't even get invited to the party.

so you're across the street and you're hearing it muffled through the house that you wish you got the invite to. Damn, that's kind of sad. It's all right. Your core than I am. I get it. Turning into a bit of a therapy session for Charlie Not XX here. I feel like this whole album is therapeutic.

This drum, 808 moment, comes into the chorus. And as we move into this first verse, the drum pattern is switched with this kind of pinging, atmospheric synth, there's like a ping, right? Like radar. pulling us away from this voyeuristic, perhaps claustrophobic sonic palette, and once again, into this atmospheric landscape away from a tangible sense of place. The floor tom sound we just talked about is gone and is now replaced by this pinging, which is steadily rising, contributing to this kind of snowball effect,

where the song just keeps building and building and building. Yeah, the song is creating this feeling like at some point, The beat has got to drop. The party has got to start. Everyone's going to come in the doors. Boom, giant party happening for you. And each chorus adds a synth element to kind of raise the emotional stakes of the song. The narrative becomes richer as the song progresses.

Synth pads, new percussion layers, something that sounds almost like a triangle on the background. There's new background vocals added where she's going, whoa, whoa. which is new, haven't heard that yet. And then lyrically, we allied from Party for You to Party on You. I just want to party on you. And I need some help decoding this. What does it mean to party on someone? I hope you find out someday, Nate.

Oh, it's sex? Oh, well, I know all about that. I mean, I've read about it in books. Three children. And I have three children. That came from somewhere, presumably. But is that really what's going on? I just want to party on you?

I just want to have sex with you. I feel like there's another meaning here. I think it's ultimately about forming connection. This is a desperate call out into the universe of like, I want to be close to you. And so whether that is physically, romantically, or just forming that connection, that's what she's yearning for.

That's why this feeling of like this endless build, we want to see it fulfilled. I threw this party for you so that I could party on you. Okay. I want to leave it vague and not because I'm a prude, just because I think that's, being true to the spirit of the lyrics. And this line, Party on You, takes us into the third element of the song that I think is contributing to its massive success.

We're going to get to that after the break. Maria, you have a podcast now and you need to start acting like it. What's the first step as a podcaster? Well, you have to ask lots of questions. I'm Maria Sharpova, and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough. Every week, I'm sitting down with trailblazing women at the top of their game to discuss ambition, work ethic, and the ups and downs that come on the path to achieving greatness. I have a few pretty tough questions for you.

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I hope you'll join us. Episodes drop Wednesdays on YouTube or in your favorite podcast app. So in this investigation of Party for You, we already have a plethora of hooks and we already have the song's rich textures. The third thing about this track that I find special is most apparent in the back half of the song. This is nearly a five-minute song. It clocks in at four minutes and 56 seconds. And around the halfway mark, we get a distinct use of monotonous repetition. Monotonous repetition. Monotonous repetition. Monotonous repetition.

Thank you. There's two points in the track in which this happens, and if you plotted out the song on, let's say, a story map, shout out film school, it would be the song's rising action into the climax. The rising action is this track's second verse. We get this flowing stream of words and melody that gives no signs of stopping. This part of the song is the source of one of the songs. song's viral trends where people exaggeratedly lip sync this verse.

This stream of consciousness has this lyrical dexterity to it. You could watch me pull up on your body like it's summer, take my clothes off and the water splash around and get you blessed like holy water. This is what I'm talking about. This is not effortless. Like it sounds like she's just didda-da-da-d-d-d-d- whatever. Right. But it's very precise.

When I saw her do this live, all of Barclays Center went bananas. This is her guitar solo to me. This is like, I'm showing off all that I've got, all of my rhymes. The melody is simple because she's nearly rapping. As she increases the speed of her delivery, the stakes just feel like they're building and building, which support all of what we've heard in the production. Like, this thing is going to blow up. The party is nearly here.

It's giving intrusive thoughts. It's giving word vomit. When the melody breaks, you know, she's kind of doing this rapid fire. Do do, do, do, do, do. When we get this pause, her intonation drops, like she's exasperated and taking a breath, or perhaps coming back down to earth, grounding herself in her body rather than her thoughts. Well, it's also a real shift in emotional state, right? At first, it's like, we're going nuts in the

pool. Everything's wild. And then she's like, if you saw my tears, would you touch me? Like, if I'm vulnerable with you, will you still be open with me? Like, can we still get together? I want to be real. This is where the song feels like it's a silly party anthem, but it's actually about the desperation of wanting to be loved. And the way that she says the line, I only threw this party for you, before she launches into these questions, if you saw my tears, would you touch me,

is delivered very delicately. She's kind of yelling the first half of this verse. And then when she says, I only threw this party for you, there's an extra layer of vocal processing on her voice that brings it down to earth. She's singing very softly. It is a marked shift.

Yeah, it's like she's gone from raging as she does on stage and owns the entire party and then walks over to you, whispers in this person's ear with this beautiful vocoded voice, I only threw this party for you. It's very intimate. It is. I can see why this song came out of this COVID moment because it's all about yearning for that experience of being together. It's like imagining the party, imagining the connection, imagining having that spark with someone. And then I feel like I can see why it's having it's having.

this resurgence because people are still yearning for that connection. We're no longer in a global pandemic, or maybe by some metrics we are. I honestly don't know at this point. But I can say that there is a loneliness epidemic out there, right? I'm not making this up. I've read the studies. People are yearning for that connection. They're staring into their phones. And this song helps reflect that back at them. Who doesn't relate to that? I threw this party for you. The only reason I showed up was because I was hoping you would be there. And I was hoping I could talk to you. I've been in that experience. I think the only thing that makes a song even that much more successful is that it never fulfills the expectation the party takes off. That like it leaves

us wanting more. And I feel like after this rapid fire second verse, we're going to finally hear the party and yet we don't. Instead, we go into this like extended bridge section that completely re-contextualizes this party. Yeah, and that's the climax of the song I would say. It's kind of form breaking because it is sort of a bridge. It's not really a verse. It's just this building acapella crescendo. Yeah. Might I say anti-climax? Mm, I like that. Party on you. Haty on you. Party on you. Party on. Party on. Party on. You know. Party on. So as we get into this anti-climax, the whole song cuts out. When her voice comes back in, we get that same voice that we heard in that little vocoder section of the second verse,

this kind of intimate, soft, delicate, I only threw this party for you. Here she's repeating over and over again, party on you, party on you, party on. It's this moment in the song where everything stops. And part of the song's virality is people trying to explain what this part means, what people are gleaning from it. Charlie X-EX made a TikTok in response. And what this part represents to her is, quote, the moment you realize that that one person isn't ever coming to your party. So you stand in the middle of the room, tears briefly fill your eyes, but then you wipe them away, pretend you're okay, and then proceed to get unbelievably effed up, and then spend the next week feeling, completely ashamed of yourself, X-X.

Wow. Relatable. Yep. Extremely evocative, and it's crazy because this section does evoke those feelings by starting at the bare minimum and building back up. The sequence lasts for nearly a minute with elements being added layer by layer, and when the synths start to come back in, they begin to creep in quietly and grow louder, mimicking this impending wave of emotion that Charlie talks about. And then after the arpeggiating top layer, we get this deep abrasive bass.

It's a little bit more intense than the base we got at the beginning of the song. Going back to A.G. Cook's superb texture landscaping, it's hard, and it kind of catches you off guard. And we also have a reduced harmonic language. Earlier, the song was going through this four-cord vamp. And now when the 808 comes back, we just get this sort of two-cord vamp, eventually introduces a third chord. So I think your metaphor for sort of building back up is totally appropriate. She's like trying to get back to that place of excitement of wanting this party to happen. Yeah, the 808 builds and then these claps come in.

As Charlie gives this auto-tuned whale, come to my party. It brings up the repetition in a way that feels cathartic and this plea here, right? come to my party. This is the most direct that she's been in this entire song. It's one of the most vulnerable moments in a song full of vulnerability. It keeps building and then is the bedrock for what I'd consider the song's denouement, you know, the post-climax breather that leads us into the track's conclusion. The vocal stacking contributes to this deeply cinematic build that rises and then falls. And during this outro verse, instead of going up at the end, of the phrase, she goes down, right? She sings, all I'm thinking, all I know is. It's falling and it kind

contributes to this feeling of defeat that Charlie expresses. I can absolutely hear this feeling of defeat. She is not getting what she wants. But I think the moment of realization is actually just before this extended outro. What happens immediately after her rapid fire second verse is a harmonic shift where we can hear her experience, oh, I'm not going to get what I want. Here comes the build. We're growing. It's exciting. Feels familiar.

But then, what is that chord? We're building still. The party's going to happen. And then... Oh, that was weird. That is a stank face chord. Wow. Yeah.

Feeling it. all of a sudden this really tense harmonic language shows this emotional shift. Yeah. That we no longer have those basic chords, the party chords. Instead, it's these very in my feelings almost feels like Baroquean kind of harmonic language. Yeah. I feel like that's to me how she's setting up the anti-climax. That we're revisiting familiar material with new harmonic language.

It builds and builds and builds and builds and build and builds. only to be resolved with what you had showed was like that quiet, tiny little voice like, party for you, party for you, party for you with a vocoder. It's actually party on you, which... Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. It's perhaps a little bit more interesting, the repetition of those words, party on you, which already is kind of nonsensical. Muddles the meaning of the phrase.

It's like when you say a word or a name so many times, it kind of sounds like gibberish. Like, you can only say the word party so many times before it just, becomes kind of a droning backthought. Party, party, party, party, party, party, party, party on you, party on you. Party on you, party on you is a word. And on that note, I feel like we've talked about this party that Charlie XTX is throwing on party for you so much. We're the last people standing.

Just listening to the outro on a repeat. Yeah, my Uber's here, so I got to go. But all that to say, if you combine Charlie's penchant for writing, with A.G. Cook's deep textures. And this monotonous repetition that Charlie implements, we have a pretty foolproof formula for a renewed viral hit. It's no surprise people are gravitating toward this song. It sounds different than everything else on the radio and serves as a parallel to some of the best songs on that record Brat. I, for one, will welcome the death of Brat Summer if it means

songs like Party for You finally get their due. Switched on Pop is produced by Rana Cruz, engineered by Brandon McFarlane, edited by Art Chung, illustrations by R.S. Gottlieb, theme song by Jossi Adams, and Zach Tenario of Arc. Iow. I'm a member of the Vox Media Podcast Network and production of Vulture, which is part of New York Magazine. You can subscribe at nymag.com slash pod. Find more episodes of Switched on Pop anywhere you get podcasts, and head over to our website, Switchedonpop.com to sign up for our mailing list and find us on social media at Switchedonpop. Tell us why you think party for you is having its half-decade resurgence. We'll be back again next Tuesday with a brand new episode.

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