Charli XCX, The 1975 and No Rome’ release whirlwind bop ‘Spinning’

Pop’s new supergroup deliver on the hype with an unashamedly fun and timely anthem

The debut track from a newly-formed pop supergroup consisting of Charli XCX, The 1975 and No Rome had a lot of hype to live up to.

After all, it’s been in the making for several years. The rumour mill first went into overdrive back in August 2019: Matty Healy sent Charli a beat and the popstar excitedly responded with “a HIT. A MONSTER TUNE!!” Then, last month, No Rome teased he’d got the track’s masters back before this week gushing on Twitter: “love me or love me not, this is gonna fucking hit” mere hours after Charli uploaded a 17-second black-and-white snippet of her recording her vocal at home.

‘Spinning’ has finally arrived as the first taste of the Filipino artist’s debut album (though, production-wise it definitely would have suited ‘Notes On A Conditional Form’) and carries a similar energy to garage-infused Bearface-collab ‘1:45AM’. An unpretentious and unashamedly fun escapist anthem that’s arriving right when the world needs it, the Charli-led ‘Spinning’ has a 7” pink vinyl pressing boasting a remix from PC Music founder A.G. Cook.

The 1975’s instantly-recognisable swirling beats and piano-house production immediately set the tone: bouncing on top of synth drums and a chopped-up carefree childlike voice that will have you belting along in the shower, XCX paints the picture of a late-night club fling; “found you at 4 in the morning, confidence soaring”.

The infectious melody of the chorus – “you just keep, spinning over there” – won’t leave your head for days, while the lyrics “my love like a city, all night, everywhere” hit hard considering our isolated reality right now. The title of this just-under-three-minute banger, then, is extremely fitting: it all feels like an explosion of pent-up energy that’s remained bottled throughout a party-less year.

‘Spinning’s kaleidoscopic visual aesthetic matches the party-primed sounds perfectly and, within its eye-popping psychedelic artwork, live animated characters (including Charli in “super cute mode”). Created in collaboration with Japanese artist Hideyuki Tanaka and designer Samuel Burgess-Johnson, it’s easy to imagine choose-your-fighter action figures of these pop icons hitting toy store shelves imminently.

Until then, ‘Spinning’ delivers the music equivalent of a dizzy headrush: a nostalgic sense of longing for those times when you’d lose yourself – and your friends – on a wild night out (remember those?) and find a new group of strangers to fleetingly dance with before eventually reuniting – much more bleary-eyed – with your original mates in the early hours.

Listen to ‘Spinning’ below.