“I couldn’t even be her if I tried. I’m opposite, I’m on the other side.”

A chorus-opening lyric from one of the most layered songs of Charli’s latest album, Brat, which lets us better understand her perception of the complexities of being a female musician. Exploring jealousy mixed with awe, comparison, and unpacking insecurities tied to constantly being put in one box with other women in the music industry, despite the lack of similarities in your music. The masquerade of being overtly friendly with one another just to avoid being perceived as someone who is not a ‘girl’s girl,’ whilst the male musicians openly diss each other on stages of various award shows. The stereotypical labeling of a feud between female musicians as drama and one between male musicians as strategic marketing. But this is not a song about rivalry. It’s not a song that was meant to start a fight. It’s simply a raw and honest description of Charli’s reality. It didn’t require an answer because there was no pun intended. It could’ve been worked out on the remix.

“Don’t wanna see her backstage at my boyfriend’s show”

Without this line about Charli’s husband, George Daniel from the 1975, nobody would probably guess the inspiration for the song was Taylor. However, given the history of Taylor and the 1975, there is a chance she couldn’t really grasp how this wasn’t a hateful message towards her, but rather a description of Charli’s process of dealing with jealousy. After The Life of a Showgirl came out, most of Charli’s fans weren’t really surprised to find a response in the form of a diss track. Unfortunately, not a very good one. With homophobic undertones, Taylor suggests the vicinity of her alleged rival makes her wet, right before she proceeds to compare the brat icon to a toy chihuahua and jokes about her drug use. Lacking any lyrical depth, I couldn’t really see anything but spite, despite Taylor being known for her capability to write good, witty lyrics. So why couldn’t she keep the same standard when it came to responding to a poetic message about self criticism and self-worth?

All in all, despite Taylor’s latest right-wing tendencies, a diss track fueled by homophobia and internalized misogyny in this political climate, in which both queer people and women are being striped down of basic human rights, left me shocked, with little to no motivation to listen to the rest of the album.