Charli XCX is back with big “Sweet Dreams” energy and even bigger hair. Charli’s been teasing her new single “Good Ones” for weeks now, and today it’s finally here in all its blocky-synth glory. At just over two minutes, the song is short and sweet, merging those ’80s new wave and synthpop touchstones with more of a Y2K-era pop sensibility. “I let the good ones go,” Charli breathily laments.

Lately Charli has been posting various funeral-themed images on her Instagram, including one that seems to tease a new album for release all the way in March 2022. Her most recent full-length was last year’s quarantine album How I’m Feeling Now. Although billed as an official LP, the feel of that one was more in keeping with her great 2017 mixtapes Number 1 Angel and Pop 2. Then again, it’s not like 2019’s Charli deviated significantly from those projects’ futuristic pop sound. “Good Ones,” however, feels more in line with Charli’s more mainstream-leaning material. Is she aiming for chart success again?

A statement from Charli:

Today, I, the inimitable Charli XCX, am releasing a brand new single ‘Good Ones’, accompanied by a twisted, dramatic and quite frankly electrifying music video.

The first single of my new chapter embraces all that my life has to offer in today’s world – fame, glamour, inner demons and global hits. ‘Good Ones’ was produced by Oscar Holter of Max Martin’s Wolf Cousins entity, and laments my inability to keep hold of healthy relationships, instead being endlessly drawn back to the dysfunctional and toxic.

Filmed in Mexico and co-directed by my new favorite director: Hannah Lux Davis, the ‘Good Ones’ video sees me dramatically mourning the untimely loss of my partner as I battle with the realisation that once again I’ve abandoned the goodness in my life, in favour of the sinister, with a visual aesthetic that marks a new era of me: Charli XCX.

Check out the “Good Ones” video below.