Futuristic London-based starlet twst is certainly taking musical production to the next level. After the release of her last track “Always,” a literal duet with Siri, the technopop polymath is back with her latest iteration of paradoxical artistry, “sad girls club but u gotta be cute.” A melancholy anthem, twst’s latest melody offers a counterculture of celebration for the lonely hearts, and the music video provides a platform for emotional appreciation.

“Sad girls started off as a kinda sad boy parody and I was really intrigued by the whole concept of performative sadness online and the phenomenon of sadness as an aesthetic. It has a sense of self-awareness and irony though, so it’s kinda taking back the narrative,” she explained. “A lot of music has been straight white guys fetishizing sad girls. So it’s as much as me taking the piss and being ironic as it is me being honest and well…sad. It’s serious and playful, ironic and post-ironic, awkward yet aspirational.”

In the song’s accompanying video, the camera slowly pans out to reveal twst gingerly dancing among alternating colored lights in the opening scene. Six identical windowed bedrooms then appear in a grid, and the pensive vocalist lies pondering in the center as she promotes a positive narrative surrounding sensations of heartache. As tears stream down her face in the sequential scenes, a group of phone-obsessed teens surrounds twst on her bed recording her wallowing sadness in an appreciation of the somber aesthetic. Now with a sad girl army, twst glorifies emotional strife in both sincere and light tones as the scene bounces between empowered group imagery and bedroom solo shots. A radical powerhouse, twst sheds light on the normality of hysteria with a melodic, female-empowered message. 

Listen to “sad girls club but u gotta be cute”, and entertain the moody aesthetic in the music video below.