Sky Ferreira is the queen of the new Pop Subculture paradigm where angsty pop stars are the new Alternative.  “Authenticity” is irrelevant because they are immediately privy to the hyper-aware underground world that was home to the once-dissaffected Miley Cyrus, our generation’s Sid Vicious, and can live beyond the world of the outsider aesthetic they create. In Ferreira’s new video, she is the misunderstood pop star with a super catchy song employing production that blends 80’s New Romantic with modern Blood Orange. She definitely has some grievances to air possibly about her run-in with the law earlier this year.

The opening scene follows a suspicious-looking figure walking down the streets of Compton in a black hoodie (and, yes, there was a touch of controversy over this video) to meet up with her “gang.” Since the controversy Ferreira has responded to the accussations in a impassioned facebook post telling her side of the story. However, she and her “gang” are obviously up to some no-good shifty, shady shit! Just as you think a brutal scene from the Wire is about to go down, it abruptly sashays to West Side Story. Really – they just want to DANCE!

Her performance is both gritty and slick, with MJ’s moves and snarling stares, and it seems that is enough for the Fuzz (I’m guessing a euphemism for the haters) to arrest her. Locked in the station, she angrily stripteases (much like her last video for “You’re Not the One”). In the new Pop Subculture, the actual product may be sugar sweet, but on the exterior it is more smoking weed behind the bleachers than being out on the field in a cheerleading uniform. I think her video asks what it means to be “tough” and “authentic” in the day and age where pop stars are the new rebels, refusing to care what their Basic Bitch audience think. Her lyrics sum it up nicely: “I blame myself for my bad reputation” because “how could you know how it feels to live outside of yourself?”