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Charli XCX is pink’d out, and peeling out, in the new music video for her Barbie soundtrack song, “Speed Drive.”
The new video, directed by Ramez Silyan, has a simple but appropriate concept: Charli performing and dancing to the song as a hot pink sports car does donuts in an empty lot. There’s even the occasional burning tire that rolls across the industrial landscape like tumbleweed. Plus, a Devon Lee Carlson cameo for the extremely online, as well as a brief appearance from Sam Smith via video call, as they and Charli discuss a new mix for a song.
“Speed Drive” features prominently in Barbie, soundtracking a big chase scene that involves Barbie and a cavalcade of Mattel executives. Speaking with Rolling Stone, Charli said she was drawn to the scene because of her perennial love of fast car anthems (see: “Vroom Vroom”).
“I’ve always really liked singing about cars,” she said. “For me, there is this intrinsic link between driving and music and feeling like you’re a star when you’re in a car.”
Charli was also one of the first people Barbie soundtrack producer Mark Ronson contacted to help with the project. The singer has always been a Barbie fan, noting her “first live performance” was an a cappella rendition of Aqua’s “Barbie Girl” during a cruise ship talent show when she was four years old.
“My parents were like, ‘Oh, my God. No.’ They were really worried that I was going to get up on the stage and cry, and it would be a disaster,” Charli recalled. “But I was adamant that I wanted to do it. I just sang it on the microphone with new music — the whole song — and I won the contest.”
