Here’s one you won’t have missed – though I’d like to take a moment to process what just happened, and perhaps you’d like to join me. Just 10 hours ago, before the holy trinity of pop princesses assembled to deliver the first single from the new Charlie’s Angels' soundtrack, the world was a simpler place. We live, now, on the other side of that event – in a reality which contains a video of Ariana Grande. Lana Del Rey. And Miley Cyrus. Stomping around a mansion. In angel wings. And all singing the same song. There is only Before and After, and history will henceforth be divided thusly.
Where were you when it dropped? we’ll ask each other in years to come. How did you feel when you first heard it? And now that all other songs have been made redundant, what does the future hold for human creativity? We talk about ‘breaking the internet’ quite flippantly, but this video was a rare instance of it happening literally – a mere six minutes after uploading to Ariana Grande’s YouTube Channel, the clip had amassed 489,000 views and promptly froze.
Rightly so, one might say. Directed by Hannah Lux Davis and romping us through a delicious array of pop culture references as enacted by three of the most famous people on the planet, Don’t Call Me Angel’s music video delivers a disarmingly kick-ass update to the 70s classic series as well as the noughties feature films. Ariana Grande looks like Clare Danes in Baz Luhrman’s Romeo and Juliet? Miley Cyrus looks like she might hurt me, in a good way? And Lana Del Rey unleashes some of her signature smoulder, propelling a throwing knife into the crotch of a man’s outline on a target practice board? All my Christmases have come at once, and I don’t know how to feel beyond thrilled.
Look, the feature film is coming to UK cinemas on November 29th. If a clip – less than four minutes long, somehow – can cause this much fuss, people might actually expire during the opening credits of the movie proper. I, for one, am willing to take my chances: if we all limit ourselves to 10 replays a day, the link might hold till then. Just 77 sleeps to go. Don’t call me angel, nanana, boy don’t call me angel, na na….
READ MORE: 9 Style Lessons From The Original Charlie’s Angels