Rare DM Turns Adult Petty Drama Into the Sleek Dark Wave Anthem “Mean Girled”

Erin Hoagg has a way of making even the ugliest little social dynamics sound uncanny, elegant, and a little dangerous. On Attention’s newest single, “Mean Girled,” the NYC artist takes petty drama and flips it into a big, polished dark wave rush.

“I hate worrying about people I don’t even care about,” Hoagg says, before getting deeper into where the song came from:

This song was inspired by rumination against my will, driven by what I have been told is my (ever present & very inconvenient) “strong sense of justice.” The term poisoning the well (or attempting to poison the well) is a type of informal fallacy, with violent roots dating back to the black death / middle ages, and the wartime tactic of poisoning a town’s water supply to destroy an invading army’s health. Far from life or death (despite how it can feel sometimes) my own experiences with being “mean girled” as an adult have been an unwelcome lesson that people committed to misunderstanding you, will continue to do so.

The track arrives with a scenic, self-directed video that leans into that same unsettled feeling. Hoagg says, “This video is from two ferry rides and a dream. Calvin Stark shot this with me last Thursday, right after my cut & color appointment with my hair bender Sean Michael Bennett. Being on a boat felt appropriate for this single — when I wrote this song I felt like a sailor lost at sea. Though no one can poison the well that is the east river. It’s already been done!”

Attention is out 5/29.