"Claws" (stylized in

all lowercase Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (more formally ''minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing systems ...

) is a song by English singer-songwriter

Charli XCX Charlotte Emma Aitchison (born 2 August 1992), known professionally as Charli XCX, is a British singer and songwriter. She began posting songs on Myspace in 2008 before entering the London rave scene. Signing a recording contract with Asylum Re ...

. It was released as the second single from her fourth studio album, ''

How I'm Feeling Now ''How I'm Feeling Now'' (stylised in all lowercase) is the fourth studio album by English singer Charli XCX, released on 15 May 2020. Released eight months after her previous album, '' Charli'' (2019), the album was conceived in the span of six ...

'', on 23 April 2020. Like the previous single, "

Forever Forever or 4ever may refer to: Film and television Films * ''Forever'' (1921 film), an American silent film by George Fitzmaurice * ''Forever'' (1978 film), an American made-for-television romantic drama, based on the novel by Judy Blume * '' ...

", the song has three official cover artworks, designed by Timothy Luke, Naked Cherry and

Sara Cwynar Sara Cwynar is a contemporary artist who works with photography, collage, installation and book-making. Cwynar was born in Vancouver, Canada in 1985 and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Cwynar's work presents a marriage of old a ...

. "Claws" was named one of the best songs of 2020 by ''

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming and culture website, bimonthly magazine, and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a "Rock music, rock inkie", the ''NME'' would be ...

'' and ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. The magazine was first known fo ...

''.

Background

On 10 April 2020, Charli XCX posted a series of clips from upcoming songs on Twitter, asking her fans which one they liked best. On 13 April 2020, she announced that "Claws" would be the next single, though she was considering calling it "I Like" instead. The following day she confirmed that "Claws" would be the official title of the song.

Composition

Produced by

Dylan Brady Dylan Marshall Brady (born 1993 or 1994) is an American music producer, singer, and songwriter, best known for being one half of experimental electronic music duo 100 gecs, alongside Laura Les. Early life Dylan Marshall Brady grew up in suburb ...

100 gecs 100 gecs () is an American musical duo formed in 2015 that consists of Dylan Brady and Laura Les. They self-released their debut album, '' 1000 gecs'', in 2019 to positive reviews, followed by a companion remix album, '' 1000 gecs and the Tre ...

, "Claws" is an

electropop Electropop is a popular music fusion genre combining elements of the electronic and pop styles. It has been described as a variant of synth-pop with emphasis on a hard electronic sound. The genre was developed in the 1980s and saw a rev ...

glitch pop Glitch is a genre of experimental electronic music that emerged in the 1990s, which is distinguished by the deliberate use of glitches in audio media and other sonic artifacts. The sounds featured in glitch tracks usually come from audio record ...

, and

hyperpop Hyperpop (sometimes called bubblegum bass) is a loosely defined electronic music movement and microgenre that predominantly originated during the early 2010s in the United Kingdom. It is characterised by an exaggerated or maximalist take on p ...

song with elements of

hip hop Hip-hop or hip hop (originally disco rap) is a popular music genre that emerged in the early 1970s from the African-American community of New York City. The style is characterized by its synthesis of a wide range of musical techniques. Hip- ...

electronica Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that came to prominence in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mos ...

pop Pop or POP may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Pop music, a musical genre Artists * POP, a Japanese idol group now known as Gang Parade * Pop! (British group), a UK pop group * Pop! featuring Angie Hart, an Australian band Album ...

and

trance Trance is a state of semi-consciousness in which a person is not self-aware and is either altogether unresponsive to external stimuli (but nevertheless capable of pursuing and realizing an aim) or is selectively responsive in following the dir ...

. It is about love in the time of

self-isolation In health care facilities, isolation represents one of several measures that can be taken to implement in infection control: the prevention of communicable diseases from being transmitted from a patient to other patients, health care workers ...

, inspired by her boyfriend whom she was quarantined with in the wake of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. About the song's production, Alex Robert Ross of ''

The Fader ''The Fader'' is a magazine established in 1999 as an outlet for Cornerstone Agency, a marketing and public relations firm established by Rob Stone and Jon Cohen. The magazine covers music, style and culture. History and work It is owned by T ...

'' said "it sounds like getting sucked into a modem and spat back out in a brightly colored cartoon".

Critical reception

Emily Tan from ''

Spin Spin or spinning most often refers to: * Spin (physics) or particle spin, a fundamental property of elementary particles * Spin quantum number, a number which defines the value of a particle's spin * Spinning (textiles), the creation of yarn or thr ...

'' described the beginning of the song as an " autotuned robotic snippet" that "transitions into a mid-tempo bounce" as "Charli explains how much she likes someone". Michael Love Michael of ''

Paper Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, Textile, rags, poaceae, grasses, Feces#Other uses, herbivore dung, or other vegetable sources in water. Once the water is dra ...

'' wrote that the song "instantly sinks its claws into you and on'tlet go", and felt that " eople willlike everything about it". In a different article for the same publication, Matt Moen described the song as a "puppy dog-eyed bop about lovestruck infatuation" laid over "top of blown-out trap drums and caustic synths before descending into a euphoric trance break that comes in as the icing on the cake". Moen also talked about the "jittery effects" and "mindless repetition" that was "Stylistically more in line with the futuristic sound n ''Charli''" as the track "reasserts her dominance as being one of pop's foremost innovators". Writing for '' DIY'', Lisa Wright described the song as a "

kitsch ''Kitsch'' ( ; loanword from German) is a term applied to art and design that is perceived as Naivety, naïve imitation, overly eccentric, gratuitous or of banal Taste (sociology), taste. The modern avant-garde traditionally opposed kitsch ...

y electro-pop nugget that draws heavily on her

PC Music PC Music is a record label and art collective based in London and run by producer A. G. Cook. It was founded in 2013, uploading its first releases to SoundCloud that year. Artists on its roster have included Hannah Diamond, GFOTY, Danny L H ...

affiliation", that was "Full of

video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

-like twinkles and

saccharine Saccharin, also called saccharine, benzosulfimide, or E954, or used in saccharin sodium or saccharin calcium forms, is a non-nutritive artificial sweetener. Saccharin is a sultam that is about 500 times sweeter than sucrose, but has a bitter or me ...

sweet lyrics", ultimately giving the feeling of being "trapped inside ''

Candy Crush ''Candy Crush Saga'' is a free-to-play tile-matching video game released by King (company), King on April 12, 2012, originally for Facebook; other versions for iOS, Android (operating system), Android, Windows Phone, and Windows 10 followed. It ...

'' with only a couple of pills and some high-sheen production to save you". In an article from ''

Stereogum ''Stereogum'' is a daily Internet publication that focuses on music news, reviews, interviews, and commentary. The site was created in January 2002 by Scott Lapatine. ''Stereogum'' was one of the first MP3 blogs and has received several awar ...

'', "Claws" was listed one of the five best songs of the week on April 24, as James wrote that the song was a "burst of pure elation", and lyrics that were the "best kind of Charli gibberish, earnest and winking in equal measure". In addition to feeling that this was "exactly the kind of music that e wantsto hear right now, music that makes imfeel cool and safe and lets imforget about everything that's going on". Trey Alston from ''

MTV MTV (an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable television television channel, channel and the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on ...

'' wrote that Charli "is in need of a software upgrade as she malfunctions while mechanically declaring her infatuation with someone", with Alston mentioning

Optimus Prime Optimus Prime, also known in Japan as is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the ''Transformers'' franchise. Generally depicted as a brave and noble leader, Optimus Prime is the supreme commander of the Autobots in their fight ag ...

. Alston also felt like the song "soundtracks the evolution of

cybernetic Cybernetics is the transdisciplinary study of circular causal processes such as feedback and recursion, where the effects of a system's actions (its outputs) return as inputs to that system, influencing subsequent action. It is concerned with ...

love through a futuristic palette of harsh sounds and feathery, sweet vocals", with Charli's voice that was "distinctly human as the war of the machines rages on in the background". Luke Hanson of ''Mxdwn'' mentioned the features of "short, staccato bursts of vocal- and

synth A synthesizer (also synthesiser or synth) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis a ...

-driven energy", in addition to several genres that influenced the production such as electronica that creates a "constant pop spirit to create a hypnotic, futuristic sound in which listeners can effortlessly get lost", with lyrics that tell a "story and capture the sentiment of being in love in lockdown, and the near-discord yet ultimate jubilation that can ultimately come from it". In April 2022, '' Clash'' listed the song among the 17 best of Charli's songs, with Gem Stokes stating that it "plays a part in the hyper-pop style that Charli XCX has come to be associated with, detailing a love that sounds so futuristic it could only ever have been penned by Charli. Glittering synths tussle with some of the fan-named 'pots and pans'

percussive A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...

sounds for a rich, well-mixed pop banger."

Music video

The music video for the song was released onto YouTube on 1 May. Given a premiere treatment, the video was directed by Charlotte Rutherford and featured XCX's boyfriend at the time, Huck Kwong. The video was filmed in a

vlog A vlog (), also known as a video blog or video log, is a form of blog for which the medium is video. Vlog entries often combine embedded video (or a video link) with supporting text, images, and other metadata. Entries can be recorded in one ta ...

-type style on a

green screen Chroma key compositing, or chroma keying, is a visual-effects and post-production technique for compositing (layering) two or more images or video streams together based on colour hues ( chroma range). The technique has been used in many fie ...

keyed-in backgrounds that included rainbows, icebergs, high heels, and sports cars. Since the video's debut, she has released the non-edited green screen, allowing fans to download and play with various backgrounds.

Charts

Personnel

Credits adapted from

Tidal Tidal is the adjectival form of tide. Tidal may also refer to: * ''Tidal'' (album), a 1996 album by Fiona Apple * Tidal (king), a king involved in the Battle of the Vale of Siddim * TidalCycles, a live coding environment for music * Tidal (servic ...

– vocals, songwriting *

– songwriting, production, vocal production *

BJ Burton BJ Burton is an American record producer, songwriter, engineer, and mixer. He is known for his work with Bon Iver, Francis and the Lights, Low, Charli XCX, and The Japanese House, and has also worked with the likes of Eminem, Lizzo and Mike Wi ...

– songwriting, vocal production, engineering * Geoff Swan – mixing * Stuart Hawkes – mastering * Niko Battistini – assistant mix engineer

References

{{authority control 2020 singles Charli XCX songs 2020 songs Songs about the COVID-19 pandemic Songs written by BJ Burton Songs written by Charli XCX Songs written by Dylan Brady Hyperpop songs Song recordings produced by BJ Burton