Today’s pop girls deviate from female empowerment to sing about more uncomfortable subjects such as insecurities and comparisons
Straying away from female empowerment music, today’s roster of main pop girls seem to be hyper-focused on something more negative: female comparisons, insecurities, retroactive jealousy, and backstabbing.
While hits from the 2010s such as “Run The World (Girls)” by Beyoncé, “Salute” by Little Mix, “God is a Woman” by Ariana Grande, “Most Girls” by Hailee Steinfeld, and “BO$$” by Fifth Harmony, celebrate femininity and female friendships, there is a lack of this empowering subject in the songs of current female artists.
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“You’ve got edge, she never did”: Comparisons in artistry
Leading the pack of main pop girls today is American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, whose career remains at large despite outgrowing her former peers in her 18 years in the music industry. One particular topic that Swift likes to write about in her songs is the fear of being “too old” for the public and being replaced by a younger female artist instead.
This is the subject of “Clara Bow,” the final song on Swift’s 11th studio album, “The Tortured Poets Department” released in April 2024. At its core, it serves as a commentary on the industry’s habit of comparing a young ingénue to a veteran icon, transitioning from Clara Bow to Stevie Nicks to Taylor Swift, and to a new, unnamed artist.
Swift wrote about this same subject in her other song, “Nothing New,” which contains a bridge fused with fear: “I know someday I’m gonna meet her, it’s a fever dream / The kind of radiance you only have at 17 / She’ll know the way, and then she’ll say she got the map from me / I’ll say I’m happy for her, then I’ll cry myself to sleep.”
Another current main pop girl who isn’t far from Swift’s age is Charli XCX, who recently shot back to stardom with her hit album, “Brat.” While the album’s genre revolves around upbeat, hyper-electropop, the themes on the record are deeper than they sound.
One particular subject discussed in “Brat” is the toxicity of comparing oneself to other artists, which is heavily discussed in “Girl, So Confusing.” This track details Charli’s complex feelings of constantly being compared to another artist, which is confirmed to be about Lorde in a remix they dropped last June 21, 2024. Both curly-haired and considered “edgy,” Charli writes of her insecurities that Lorde might secretly hate her and want to see her fail to be the better curly-haired, edgy artist.
“Do you get deja vu, huh?”: Comparisons in relationships
Following Swift and Charli is a younger crop of female artists who also follow this path of comparative songwriting, but this time, in the context of love.
Filipino American Olivia Rodrigo, who is set to hold her “Guts World Tour” concert in the Philippines on Oct. 5, is known for writing numerous ballads and pop rock anthems about “the other woman” in a relationship. She first rose to stardom with this same formula through her hits, “Drivers License” and “Deja Vu.”
In the former, Rodrigo writes in a heartbreaking melody about a blonde girl who she was “always insecure about.” The latter, however, is much snarkier, comparing her traits to her lover’s current girl. Fans speculate that Rodrigo is alluding to Sabrina Carpenter who dated her ex-boyfriend Joshua Bassett after their breakup.
Ironically, Rodrigo’s “Deja Vu” is a deja vu of Carpenter’s newest single, “Taste” from her recently-released album, “Short n’ Sweet.”
Both “Deja Vu” and “Taste” narrate about the artist’s similarities to the other woman in a mocking, poking fun kind of way. While Rodrigo writes, “Do you get deja vu when she’s with you?”, Carpenter sings, “You’ll just have to taste me when he’s kissing you.”
Another parallel is Rodrigo’s line, “I made the jokes you tell to her when she’s with you,” versus Carpenter’s line, “He’s funny now, all his jokes hit different, guess who he learned that from?”
This trend of comparing oneself to your ex-boyfriend’s new lover seems to follow other pop rock anthems of fellow main pop girls, such as Tate McRae’s “She’s All I Wanna Be” and Maisie Peters’ “Body Better.”
Gracie Abrams adds to this list as well with her song “Blowing Smoke” from her new record, “The Secret of Us.” Although “Blowing Smoke” is a more quiet, acoustic song compared to the others, Abrams too asks her lover if the new girl is prettier than her.
“I’m so obsessed with your ex”: Retroactive jealousy
But comparing oneself to your ex-boyfriend’s new lover isn’t the only popular narrative.
Even women in current, healthy relationships feel forced to compare themselves to their lover’s past girlfriends, a phenomenon experts call “retroactive jealousy.”
Rodrigo heightens this subject by playing the toxic, obsessive girlfriend in “Obsessed,” a bonus track from her recent, sophomore album, “Guts.” She talks about obsessing over her boyfriend’s ex-lover, and insisting that this ex is still a prominent figure in her boyfriend’s life.
Similar to how “Taste” mirrors “Deja Vu,” Carpenter once again parallels Rodrigo. But while “Obsessed” pokes fun at the stereotypical crazy girlfriend, the blonde girl spins the topic of retroactive jealousy with humor in her song “Coincidence,” through lines such as, “Damn it, she looks kinda like the girl you outgrew / Least that’s what you said.”
Meanwhile, Indonesian artist Niki is more crestfallen in dealing with this topic in her song, “Did You Like Her In The Morning?” from her new album, “Buzz.” Here, Niki sings that it would have been better if she wasn’t overthinking or, better yet, if “she wasn’t his last.”
“Pretty isn’t pretty enough”: Insecurities
All these songs about comparison, however, stems from the root cause of insecurity—which is another general theme among the main pop girls.
Rodrigo, again, is at the forefront of this, penning the track “Lacy,” a ballad dripping with sarcasm and jealousy about a girl who “got the one that she wants.” Though the song does not specify what it is that Rodrigo lacks, the singer lists all the qualities of this fictional girl named Lacy in a contemptuous way: smart, sexy, skin like puff pastry—everything Rodrigo doesn’t claim to be.
She then goes in-depth on her physical insecurities in “Pretty Isn’t Pretty,” a soft pop rock song that has made numerous women relate to the frustration of still not being good-looking enough despite efforts to pass society’s beauty standards.
“Said she had my back, but she had the knife”: Backstabbing
But more than just comparisons between females, the main pop girls also delve into singing about the instability of female friendships through betrayal and distrust.
An example is another knife-cutting track from Charli XCX titled, “Sympathy is a Knife,” which centers on a woman that Charli feels is feigning sympathy or care for her.
While the track remains vague, fans speculate that it might be alluding to Charli feeling inferior to Swift, with the opening line, “I don’t wanna share this space / I don’t wanna force a smile / This one girl taps my insecurities / Don’t know if it’s real or if I’m spiraling.”
This is further amplified in the bridge where she repeats the line, “All this sympathy is just a knife.”
This theme of a female figure faking concern or affection is similar to Tate McRae’s song, “We’re Not Alike,” from her latest album, “Think Later.” In this track, McRae sings about a friend who she couldn’t believe seduced her lover behind her back.
The chorus has a pained McRae singing the lines, “Said she was a girl’s girl, that’s a lie / said she had my back, but she had the knife / I could never do it once and she did it twice.”
This pattern of insecurity and comparisons in the works of female artists reflects today’s world of social media, where people feel the need to brag about their personal lives online and compare it with one another—leading to a toxic cycle well-articulated by these female artists.
But the entirety of it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad phenomena.
One positive aspect that comes from this trend of negativity is the implication that compared to the past, female artists now feel more at ease to pull from their personal experiences and write about uncomfortable topics that comes with being a woman in the cutthroat industry.
It makes the songs about the female experience more varied and specific, catering to the different emotions and upbringing of women around the world.
