Charli XCX, the pop singer heralded as a car enthusiast icon with the release of the radioactively catchy “Vroom Vroom” single back in 2016, has let everybody down with her new music video for a song titled “White Mercedes.” The error on display here is truly embarrassing, a spit in the face, painful, and impossibly easy to avoid. And yet!
Here is the music video, released today, for Charli’s new car-themed song which, again, is titled “White Mercedes”:
Here’s my problem with this music video for “White Mercedes:” There isn’t a single fucking white Mercedes in it, despite prominently featuring many vehicles! There’s not even any Mercedes at all, white or not.
To be sure, let’s go over the cars that do appear:
This is not a Mercedes. It is an eighth-generation Mitsubishi Galant (with additional wing and hood scoop tacked on, for some reason).
This is not a Mercedes. It is a second-generation Dodge Ram pickup truck, heavily modified with a lift, “monster truck” wheels and tires, a bumper winch, and a roof-mounted dancing platform.
Neither of the two cars being crushed here is a Mercedes. The car on the left appears to be a 1999-2002 facelifted Opel Vectra B. The car on the right appears to be a 1985-1989 Opel Kadett E sedan.
This is not a Mercedes. It is a horse.
The truck to the left there is not a Mercedes. It is a MAZ 6430 5440 Series crane truck manufactured in Belarus.
No other cars appear in the video. That leaves us with five cars, one horse, one pop star, some firefighters, and zero Mercedes-Benz models.
To try to understand if “Mercedes” in this song could have some other meaning besides the car, let’s check the lyrics:
I take all of these blue and yellow pills
But nothing seems to last like you
You’re chasing after something that you’ll never catch
Woah
Like a white Mercedes, always been running too fast
When your heart is breaking, you keep on taking me back
Hate myself, I really love you
Hurting you feels like I’m hurting as wellAll I know is I don’t deserve you
All I know, Charli, is that I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m assuming maybe whoever she is lamenting over may have owned or driven a white Mercedes-Benz at some point? I also looked around for full credits to the music video, thinking maybe the horse’s name is “Mercedes” or something dumb like that, but could not find anything comprehensive.
I’m not sure “white Mercedes” makes any sense in the context of the song, and it certainly does not in the context of the video!
Update: Apparently, it’s slang for drugs. But you didn’t hear that from me. Also, it’s clear they either sourced or painted the cars in the video white—I hold that they were well aware of the car reference and still fucked it up!
This isn’t the first time an artist has failed to include the title-named car in the song’s music video. Lana Del Ray insulted us all when she failed to put a white Ford Mustang in the music video for her song, which explicitly references “revving” a car, and can not be interpreted as the horse of the same name, titled “White Mustang” back in 2017.
And here we are again, watching a music video which prominently features cars, for a song titled after a car, which does not feature the actual car. Did these pop stars learn nothing in 2017?
For an example of how to do it right, here is the video for “Did You See” by J Hus, which actually manages to feature the Mercedes mentioned in the song’s lyrics:
Pop stars, don’t let this happen again. Blame your production managers or whatever, sure, but to do this right requires the bare minimum of effort. You can reach out to tips@jalopnik.com for help if you ever need it.