"silly, serious, sensual."

a girl becomes a woman on clairo's third album, "charm," plus reflections on finally becoming comfortable with calling myself an artist.

Over the Fourth of July holiday weekend, I finished “Ask Me Again,” a meditative coming-of-age novel. 

Clare Sestanovich’s debut novel isn’t as concerned with following the friendship of two characters for a decade - despite the synopsis suggesting otherwise. Instead, “Ask Me Again” becomes a character study, albeit of a very milquetoast woman. Despite the limited character growth and lack of a cohesive plot, something about Sestanovich’s writing is captivating. It’s the type of literary prose that makes you want to underline every other passage. Towards the end of the novel, the main character, a woman who writes for a newspaper, befriends an elderly advice columnist. The protagonist argues that readers don’t want to hear about common, everyday problems because they’re too boring. The advice columnist disagrees. 

“People don’t want to be entertained. What they want is to relate.” 

This quote has haunted me ever since. It’s led to a shift in how I think about the art I consume and finally viewing myself as an artist, a label I was always quick to shy away from until recently.

EXPLORING CLAIRO’S CHARM.

I am a sad girl. Or rather, my musical tastes are very solidly in the “sad girl” category. 

Sad girl music is what you listen to while staring at the ceiling, waiting for a boy to text you back. Crying because he never did. It’s the soundtrack to wandering down a quiet side street while the rain softly falls or watching a particularly arresting sunset, crying and wistfully waiting for your life to start.

scenes from a sad girl walk. it’s like a hot girl walk, but less sex, more yearning.

Waiting and crying is a big theme for sad girl music. With lyrics like, “Well I hope it makes you cry/the way that I did” and “Will I stop crying for once/it’s hurting my eyes,” Faye Webster was my go-to sad girl for the last few years but that all changed when the Spotify algorithm finally connected the dots, introducing me to a new sad girl.

Clairo, the stage name for the artist Claire Cottrill, went viral in 2017 after “Pretty Girl,” but she didn’t pop up on my radar until early last year when I finally listened to her second album, “Sling.” While her first album, “Immunity,” reflects her bedroom pop origins, “Sling” is a better introduction to her current sound, which takes cues from 1970s singer-songwriters like Carol King. Cottrill’s songwriting is at its best when she captures life’s small moments, the type of quiet introspection that feels like reading a journal or lowercase missives of that cool depressed girl you knew in high school. Her songs offer brief glimpses into the anxiety you might feel while attending a party you promised to go to yet can’t wait to leave or the weighty tension between two people who desperately want to kiss yet - for a variety of contrived reasons - won’t.

For the last year, “Sling'' was my constant companion while I navigated the end of my marriage. Last summer was a period where I was sad yet knew what awaited me on the other side was what I wanted. A personal favorite is the album’s opener, “Bambi,” which follows Cottrill’s journey toward stardom while still feeling relevant enough to anyone who recognizes they are on the cusp of something new yet unimaginable. “Take it or leave it/the moment’s here and you should believe it” resonated with me so much that I turned it into the title of my zine. 

“Sling” was an appropriate album to bridge Cottrill’s transition from teen virality to young adult angst. During the press for the album and questions surrounding how much of a departure it was from her debut, Cottrill thought of “Sling” as a better reflection of her musical sensibilities and the direction of her life.

“I started to actually act on the things that I always meant to do…I always wanted to make a record that sounded like Sling, so we did Sling. It feels like it’s such a nice release to remember that I listened to myself.” - Claire Cottrill (Rolling Stone)

Clairo’s third studio album, “Charm,” out earlier this month, feels like a continuation of an artist listening to herself. Rather than forget her origins, Clairo’s approach to this album remains true to her sad girl bedroom pop beginnings, but with greater maturity. 

If “Sling” was about realizing it’s time to grow up, “Charm” represents those first tender steps of a girl becoming a woman. Cottrill has always fixated on transitions, the ephemeral nature of space and time, dreams versus reality, growing up and getting old. These themes continue to guide her work in “Charm.” The moon hides, records fade, candles burn (“Slow Dance”). The penultimate track takes on a snow globe-like quality, a collection of memories about a former lover that softly floats in and out of the singer’s thoughts (“Glory of the Snow”).

Sex and romance are undeniably at the center of Cottrill’s work, with previous albums exploring the world of unrequited crushes (“Bags”) or navigating the male gaze. The first single from her sophomore album was “Blouse” - a breathy, somber ballad (featuring Lorde on backing vocals) where she reflects on the hyper-sexualization she experienced as a young woman in the music industry. In many ways, “Charm” is Cottrill reclaiming her sexuality and femininity, but on her terms, with her voice and perspective.

Being silly and serious, being sensual but kind of far away…Instead of thinking back on relationships or situations that I could write a sad song about, what if I wrote a song that was upbeat? That was a cool challenge. The record is a bubbling mixture of fleeting moments between people and how it left me, and then romanticizing the rest of it and making it up in my head, because it’s more charming to me for there to be some of what I know and some of what I’m making up. And some sadness and some fun and some serious and some not so serious. - Claire Cottrill (Vulture)

Fans are taking notice. The album’s first single and second track, “Sexy to Someone,” has quickly become an anthem for soft sad girls on TikTok who don’t necessarily identify with the more brash and bratty Charlie XCX. However, the honor for the album’s most sensual, make-out-worthy song is “Juna.” With its bouncy bass, shimmering keys, and soft pleading to “come to me slowly,” this song makes me want to put on hot pants, lace up some roller skates, and glide toward a lover during a lazy humid early evening. It is the type of song that demands a listen on a record player, the soft crackle adding to the song’s charm.

My personal favorite is the A-side closer, “Thank You.” Cottrill is a house, ready and waiting for someone with the right key to open her doors, let in some fresh air, provide her with a new perspective.

There’s something about opening the door and leaving it wide open that I immediately connected with. As I continue to think about dating and other forms of intimacy, a part of me is still worried about the vulnerability that comes with it. Each time I queue up this song, it is with the quiet comfort and knowledge that I am not alone, that other people are asking, “Why doesn’t this happen more naturally?” Perhaps it is because I am a hopeless romantic, lost in the daydream of a meet-cute at a farmers market or bookstore, hoping to find someone who finds my intelligence and ambition hot rather than feel intimidated or emasculated by it.

this type of wistful daydreaming typically reaches its peak as the sun makes its final descent, day shifting to early evening.

Cottrill is an artist who seems to capture these golden hour musings and the different transition points in my life in a way that very few people have. As I start to put together a crew and cast for my first short film, now I find myself on the precipice of creating things that other people might engage with, interpret, and hopefully connect with in the same way her work has resonated with me.

AN ARTIST IS BORN.

Until recently, I resisted referring to myself as an artist or creative. 

Even as I spent last fall and into early spring writing, editing, and designing my zine, I still never viewed my work as explicitly “art.” In my mind, people make art with the explicit intention of consumption and interpretation. The zine was never about creating something for people to actively engage with and comment on. It was a cathartic exercise in processing my divorce, a physical finished product that I would share with a few friends who played active or indirect roles in my life during those four months. I didn’t anticipate that strangers would buy it, engage with it, and develop opinions and thoughts of who I am.

And yet that is what ultimately happened.

I put out a tiny piece of myself that people read, interacted with, and related to. People, sometimes strangers, but also loose acquaintances and even some long-term friends, were able to see me in a different way that also helped them relate to a memory or experience in their own lives. Hearing their comments and feedback was at once reassuring yet frightening because suddenly I was doing something I had always wanted to do.

Last year I went on a transformative mushroom trip. One of the realizations I had that afternoon was a desire to “look at the world and reflect it back.” At the time, I didn’t know what that meant in practice. The last fifteen months have become an exploration, a journey, an exercise in trying to figure out how I could translate words into action. 

It has meant returning to myself, to my interests and hobbies that I had discarded over the years. That initial inquiry led to a series of decisions that made me rediscover a love of film and an epiphany that filmmaking was something I wanted to explore. It was me becoming an active student, noting notes on the movies and shows that I watched. That led to learning about filmmaking, reading scripts, and eventually writing a few of my own. And now I am assembling a crew to shoot my first short film. 

Earlier this week I got on a FaceTime call with a stranger, a potential Director of Photography who had come highly recommended by a friend. The whole time leading up to the call, I was so nervous. Did they like it? Did they get it? The first few minutes were awkward, but soon there was an undeniable creative spark. The conversation shifted and it clicked. Here was someone who not only understood my influences as a writer but could begin to articulate what he thought the visual representation of the words that I wrote should look like. That morning, I looked at myself and this potential collaborator on the screen as we talked about the next steps, realizing for the first time I was looking at two artists.

As my creative work shifts away from the personal and into fiction, I am excited about exploring transition moments like this, the point at which one thing - relationship dynamics, physical spaces, a period of time - becomes an entirely new and separate and exciting thing. 

“I have no idea when I figured something out in my own life. I won’t know until a lot later. But it’s really cool to look at other people’s lives and see that it took a few times, or that they figured something else out later on. It makes me feel better about dedication. You just have to keep moving, because you genuinely won’t know until later that something shifted…There are times where I can be like, Am I not seeing something through fully? But I’m moving in the direction that I want to move in at that moment in my life.” (Vulture)

I have no idea what the next month, year, or decade of my life will look like, but I know that I am finally heading in the right direction. Along the way, I hope that there is more Clairo, more personal growth that she captures through her music, and more ways in which an artist not only entertains me but continues to depict an experience I can also relate to.