When it came time to create Coco and Clair Clair’s third album, “Girl,” the duo comprised of Taylor Nave and Claire Toothill were in the mood to record covers of other people’s songs.
“I don’t think we knew it at the time but I think we were secretly trying to avoid having to dive back into making a new album,” Claire tells Variety. The road to “Girl,” the follow-up to their critically acclaimed “Sexy” LP from 2022, was an intimidating one, no doubt. “Sexy” boasted several viral singles, including “Pop Star,” a quirky fusion of featherlight beats with punchy lyrics to match: “Pay me just to party and I show up in my PJs” and “If you want to hang with bad bitches there’s gonna be a fee.” Each verse delivered with equal parts ferocity and irony, producing an irresistible combination of relatability and delusion that feels specific to Gen Z.
“We make music to have fun and we do karaoke all the time, we’re obsessed. We always play cover songs at our shows. We’re huge fans of Angel Olsen, who releases covers all the time. To us, it made perfect sense that our next album be [comprised] of covers,” Coco (Nave) adds, “Our team was like ‘Oh… that‘s not gonna sell, babe.”
So they compromised at only one cover: a gauzy, drum’n’bass take on Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young’s “Our House.” The album also includes the already-released singles “Aggy” and “Kate Spade,” which introduced the album an immediate level-up from “Sexy.” With each rugged breakbeat on “Kate Spade,” Coco’s charming flow and wit is strikingly confident and overwhelmingly feminine, cultivating an alluring charm that is felt throughout all nine tracks.
To understand the scope of Coco and Clair Clair, you’d have to know the pair first crossed paths via X (back when it was Twitter) — an encounter only possible in the 21st century — and created their first song using the skeleton of a beat made by one of Coco’s ex-boyfriends.
“In the technical sense, of course, we’ve both always been producing our music but Coco has always had a very distinct style and approach to shopping for and making beats,” adds Claire. “Since we started this project in 2014, Coco was always looking for beat packs and that’s what helped us when we didn’t quite know where to begin but now we’re in a lucky position where we have gotten to work with a lot of really great producers coming out of Los Angeles, New York and Atlanta. We’ve also worked with a lot of not so great, different guys in music, and it’s very difficult, famously, but working with someone like Raven [Arston], who is an artist in more ways than one, has definitely been a game changer.”
Coco adds, “I just like to put stuff together — if it makes a rhythm or a sound or a beat that feels like us, then cool. That was my approach for the longest, but with this album, and after working with Raven on ‘Kate Spade’ and ‘Aggy,’ specifically, I do feel a bit more intentional.”
After releasing a collection of remixes for “Sexy,” including collaborations with the 1975’s George Daniel, Empress Of and K-pop group Twice’s Chaeyoung, among others, in November of last year, the Atlanta natives spent the holidays in Amsterdam with Artson. “Then we spent like two weeks in California, a couple of days in LA and a few others in Joshua Tree, and out of all those extreme environments came ‘Girl,’” says Claire.
Saint Etienne, Brandy, Everything but the Girl, Lana Del Rey, Club 8, Milky and Madonna are all cited as musical influences for “Girl,” while lyrically, the record maintains the same unabashed and superfluous allure that put them on the map back in 2017 when they dropped “Pretty.” After Clairo used the song in one of her many SoundCloud mixes, Coco and Clair Clair began releasing music more regularly with formidable singles, namely “Naomi & Kate,” “Sunnyside,” “U + Me” which gained popularity just as TikTok was beginning to grow into an essential promotional tool for music artists and record labels.
“It’s funny thinking back to to the Clairo overlap, because I think so much of our success is based off of pure luck and coincidence,” says Claire. “It was very organic and it happened over a short period of time. I can think back to a time before and after TikTok — actually, the labels knew the songs were going to viral before we even knew it, because they have their little software tricks, and it was an incredibly confusing time for us.”
Adds Coco, “It was a very conscious decision to remain independent. We got the advice of starting own own LLC, which we did, and we named it something so stupid (“Straight Crack Rock LLC”). But once we realized what the labels are for and what they can provide and what they do, we were like, ‘Okay, well, we can do that for ourselves.’ Unless there’s a label that comes along that doesn’t want to act like a bank, then sure, maybe we’ll consider it.”
Coco and Clair Clair appear more connected than ever — despite currently being several states apart — to each other, to themselves and to expanding a catalog of music that ultimately proves diamonds are best made under pressure.
Source Agencies
