Just when you think you’ve finally mastered the choreography to one of Charli XCX’s bops from Crash, she goes and decides to release another song the same week the album is expected to drop. This one, too, comes with a memorable video, but what sets it apart from the singles that have preceded it is that “Every Rule” is an ethereal slow jam that prominently features A.G. Cook’s signature production sound (thus warranting his appearance in the vid)—something that Charli is no stranger to employing in her work.
Co-produced by Oneohtrix Point Never (to make for what Charli calls the “dream team”), there are notable tinges of The Chromatics’ flavor in the music itself, with one easily being able to imagine this ditty being performed at the Bang Bang Bar in Twin Peaks. Naturally, the 80s inspo is also in full effect as usual, with XCX being well-versed in culling from the sonic stylings of that decade—something Cook brings out in her all the more.
The video, once again directed by Imogene Strauss and Luke Orlando (who additionally brought us “Baby),” takes place on a channel called HeavenTV… at times complete with a VHS-looking, grainy aesthetic. And Charli certainly appears to play the part of an angel (the nickname she also gives to her fans because, duh, “Charli’s angels”) as she tells her tale of lament regarding the pratfalls of monogamy—at least when one is “tempted by the fruit of another,” as it is said by Squeeze. Indeed, if Woody Allen was open to other music besides that old man jazz shit (and still employable), this is the exact type of song that describes pretty much every plotline he’s ever come up with, particularly with reference to the 2003 movie, Anything Else.
Displaying occasional affections for New York in her songwriting (as she also did on 2020’s “anthems” via the lyrics, “I want anthems, late nights, my friends, New York”) that show up in the storytelling method (very Taylor, by the way) of this single as well, Charli recalls, “Met up late night by the Bowery/And in the morning we got coffee/Acting like strangers and told no friends/It wasn’t easy to pretend.” As though anyone meets on the Bowery anymore. What does she think this is, a Woody Allen movie? She ought to stick with the David Cronenberg inspiration instead. But anyway, she sounds a lot like Amanda Chase (Christina Ricci) in her own initial dalliance with Jerry Falk (Jason Biggs) in the aforementioned film. Who only seems interested in Jerry precisely because he’s in a relationship and so is she… specifically with Jerry’s friend, Bob (Jimmy Fallon).
Accordingly, one could imagine Amanda singing right along (albeit with far less guilt) with Charli when she admits, “And we know that it’s wrong, but it feels real fun/Sneaking around, falling deep in love/But sometimes I get scared/‘Cause I know it’s unfair/I’m hurting someone else instead.” But that’s all part of the turn-on, innit? With that piece of the puzzle missing, it just transforms back into another form of monogamy. Yawn.
Instead, it’s much hotter to think to oneself, “You’re breaking every rule for me/I’m breaking every rule for you/But I’ve got to say I want it this way/These moments really set me free.” And why? Because they’re not moments of “technically” being monogamous. Not until one decides to turn their affair into another “legitimate” relationship by way of moving in together and quibbling over finances.
Presumably about how she came to be with (erstwhile) long-time boyfriend Huck Kwong, “Every Rule” was written even before how i’m feeling now was released. And it unravels those initial electric instants between two people who feel an attraction to one another. Electric instants that feel all the more so when it’s “forbidden”—as monogamy, courtesy of societal norms, has indoctrinated us to believe.
With regard to both relationships specifically and music in general, Charli has a lot in common with fellow Brit MARINA, who has also operated as an underground, DIY type in a major label system. In fact, the two share the same label. To that point, Charli remarked of her final album for Atlantic, “I’d never actually made a major label album in the way that it’s actually done. It felt interesting to me to use moments of that process to make this final album as somebody who has really navigated the major label record system since I was sixteen completely on my own terms.” Which is part of why she’s bringing such a sardonic sensibility to Being A Pop Star for this record the way MARINA did for 2012’s iconic Electra Heart.
Another echo of MARINA and deciding to end her own long-term relationship with Clean Bandit member Jack Patterson is manifest in the same above-alluded-to Rolling Stone story, when Charli notes, “Other songs deal in relatable ideas like men giving you the ick—doing something that suddenly and irreversibly turns you off—and not knowing whether you’ve blown up a long-term relationship for the right reasons or you’ve self-sabotaged again.” Part of “self-sabotage” can come from the thrill of meeting and connecting with someone new while still in another relationship, and mistaking that thrill for something “better.” Which is why Charli sings, “Straight away we started falling/Conversation never boring/When your lips brushed up against my skin/All I wanted was to let you in.” And so, one does. Takes a chance on yet another human who “could be” the potential “end all, be all.” The panacea for one’s ills, woes and overall loneliness.
Of course, that’s never the case. But we keep searching for it until the day we make it to “heaven.” The cloudy perch from where Charli sings us this lullaby-like track in a sheer white poncho with white feathery fringe. She wants the world down below to hear. This, her admission that monogamy is only “exciting” when it’s achieved through rendezvous that betray another.
