PinkPantheress Single-Handedly Improves U.K.-U.S. Relations, Gives JCPenney Free Advertising With “Stateside”

Already described as “her personal favourite track” from Fancy That, PinkPantheress is making “Tonight” look a bit like chopped liver with the release of “Stateside.” A single that arrives during a moment when relations between the U.S. and just about every other country couldn’t be more fraught. This includes its erstwhile “special” relationship with Britain, which PinkPantheress seems as intent as Keir Starmer to maintain as she chirps such lyrics as, “I’m going stateside/Where I’ll see you tonight/Tell me, how did a girl like me get into you?/You could be my American [pronounced like “‘Merican”], ha, ha, ha, ha” (a sentiment not unlike Estelle singing, “I really want to come kick it with you/You’ll be my American boy”). And yes, like “Tonight,” there’s plenty of interjected “mm’s” and “uh huh’s” (not to mention some “I’m a Slave 4 U-esque” panting) for lyrical “layering.”

While the opening fifteen seconds sound controlled, a burst of new musical backing (that briefly sounds like a certain portion of Junior Senior’s 2002 hit, “Move Your Feet” [which Nicki Minaj recently sampled from for 2024’s “Everybody”]) leads into the stalker-y lyrics, “It sounds insane, right?/I’ll take the same flight/Wait at your bedside, I’ll land right next to you.” So it would seem that, in addition to attempting to bring back “warm feelings” between the U.S. and the U.K., PinkPantheress is also trying to bring the romance back to the concept of an infatuation so strong it leads to obsessive behavior (of the sort that was once presented as “flattering” or “desirable” in rom-coms like Love Actually and 50 First Dates). 

And, to emphasize her commitment to that obsession, PinkPantheress displays her knowledge of all things American by shooting the video for “Stateside” in the empty parking lot of a JCPenney (as she put it, “Yes we dead ass shot this outside JCPenney”). Thanks to direction by Emma Berson, not only is the focus on American commerce (however decayed its representation through a “dead mall” [or “dead department store”] might be), but also on ripped American boys who look like they were pulled right from the pages of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalogue. This undoubtedly being where PinkPantheress must have gotten her casting inspiration from considering her love of all things 00s (though she has some stiff “scholar” competition on that front from Addison Rae). 

As for herself, PinkPantheress opts to wear much more clothing than the boys (who could easily be described as “zombie boys” [to Lady Gaga’s delight] from the look of their dead-eyed actions at times). Her own sartorial choice also being decidedly at home in the 00s. Along with the pay phone she walks toward after passing a construction worker that’s arbitrarily painting in some lines to ostensibly “zhuzh” up the faded lot (almost as faded as the idea of shopping at JCPenney itself). As she makes her way to the phone booth (yes, that’s also the name of a 2002 movie starring Colin Farrell), the abovementioned zombie effect of the American boys takes hold as they walk en masse to follow her—while also toting some vibrantly-colored umbrellas.

To be sure, umbrellas are very crucial to certain parts of the video. Namely, as they fly into the air or when the various “hot zombie boys” carrying them march through the parking lot in a choreographed manner. At one point, the zombie boys even join together to hold the umbrellas in a horizontal line so that PinkPantheress can pass by them without the sun shining too brightly on her (American UV rays are much more toxic, after all). 

Though that never stopped a Brit from venturing stateside. And, talking of other musical Brits, for those who can detect a slight “Charli XCX” vibe, it isn’t just because The Dare co-produced the track, but also because of certain lyrical parallels. For example, PinkPantheress enunciating her “ha ha ha ha’s” is akin to what Charli does on “You (Ha Ha Ha).” And when PinkPantheress alludes to potentially moving stateside full-time for the sake of being with an “American hot, hot boy” it correlates to Charli’s Sucker-era “London Queen” theme when she sings, “I never thought I’d be living in the USA/Doing things the American way/I never thought I’d be living in the USA/Living the dream like a London Queen.”

Indeed, these boys really do seem to make her feel like enough of a “London queen” (which only seems to be a testament to how shittily British men must treat women) based on her verses, “But you’re so nice so I’ll stay/Never met a British girl, you say?/No one treats me this way/Are all the boys out here the same?” As for the latter part, it might read like PinkPantheress is affronted by the way she’s being treated, but, in fact, she’s pleased and surprised by it. By how “well” the American boy treats her (again, one has to wonder what she’s basing her benchmark on). This extends, evidently, to a crowd of them lifting her in the air and carrying her on her back like she’s, that’s right, a London queen (or Mariah Carey on any given day). 

The video starts to get “steamier” when multiple “parking lot painters” dressed in construction attire (wearing the signature vest of said uniform without any shirt underneath it, of course) start to get in on the line-demarcating project. At one point, this means painting right over PinkPantheress (who lies supine on the pavement because why not?) in a fashion that evokes that scene of the “brush dog” in Alice in Wonderland “de-lining” an area and going right past Alice as he does so (so the inverse of what happens to PinkPantheress). When they’re done painting over her, she gets up as though in a sad daze that it’s over (talk about a particular kind of kink). 

By now wearing a different outfit, PinkPantheress eventually returns to the supposed safety of the phone booth. Except that it appears as though the “zombie hot boy” apocalypse kicks in as a horde of muscular men tries to infiltrate the booth in a way that’s reminiscent of both Love Potion No. 9 (in terms of the effect that a girl like Marisa [Mary Mara] has on men after drinking of the potion) and that 2005 Motorola Rockr commercial. And so it seems that maybe she should have been careful what she wished for vis-à-vis wanting to be with an American boy. After all, reciprocated lust at a more intensified level can be a killer. Just look at the U.K. trying to keep it together with the U.S. But clearly, PinkPantheress has that angle covered with “Stateside.”