Grade: 4.5/5.0

Coco & Clair Clair’s album Sexy opens with shameless defiance, with cheeky lo-fi synth stacking up against itself on the duo’s first single “Cherub.” The song sets the stage for the rest of the album which consistently rises to surpass its own bar again and again, a pop-rap explosion of colorful confidence and flippancy. 

“Realest bitches in the room always me and Clair,” Coco says in the opening song, just the first instance of them acknowledging their own magnificence. The best friend duo met on Twitter and began making music shortly after, forming a unique alternative sound that flourishes on their latest album.

Sexy is aptly named: Coco & Clair Clair are hot, and they know it. Their confidence seeps through the album and directly into the listener, imbuing them with the same confidence and sexiness the pop duo brags about.

Clair Clair’s verses are as dreamy as a depersonalized high, while Coco’s are in-your-face, loud and unashamed. Clair Clair’s softer lo-fi choruses coupled with Coco’s hot girl rap verses create a pleasurable coalescence, their collaboration a perfect mixture of subtle intimacy and bold vitality. The most compelling songs on the album are the ones where this pairing is at its most undiluted. 

This dichotomy thrives in songs such as “Be With U (ft. Deto Black),” which features abundant tenderness from Clair Clair, and unfiltered bad bitch energy from Coco. Backed by a synth, the song contains both gentle and unabashed lyrics almost back-to-back, such as “I wish I could sleep in the palm of your hand” and “You won’t catch me out here haggling with a bitch, ain’t that saddening?”

Other such shining, standout lyrics are ubiquitous throughout the album, making it sparkle with creativity. Sassy and undercutting, “Bitches (ft. Marjorie -W.C. Sinclair)” overflows with some of the sharpest lines on the record — “The only bread you pussies get is a yeast infection/ I’m with bad boys and mean girls in thе VIP section” and “Girl built like a vape pen and think that she compare” come to mind. 

Coco & Clair Clair embody their hot girl energy with such a casual air that their coolness cannot be disputed. “You’re boring, you’re boring, I’m bored,” Coco deadpans in “Love Me,” her detached drawl sending the message that she’s above it all, simultaneously hotter-than-you and too cool. Interspersed by amusing digs at Katy Perry and shoutouts to fellow bad bitch Joan Jett, a shiveringly satisfying self assurance builds. “You know them? F—in’ me either,” Coco says.

The album is loaded with pop culture references, from mentions of Shakira and The Weeknd to Jordin Sparks and Chloe Sevigny. Interpolating Nicki Minaj’s “Did It on’em” and Britney Spears’ “Gimme More,” “U + Me” calms as it sculpts an atmospheric, high echo of the metallic lo-fi soundscape. 

“We’re giving you GROWTH, we’re giving you SEXY, we’re giving you a MASSIVE HIT all within this one song,” the duo said of the song in a tweet prior to its release, and indeed, the song stands out as one of the album’s strongest. 

The record comes to a scintillating close with “Pop Star,” their lively 2020 single that is both danceable and dreamlike in true Coco & Clair Clair fashion. The pair flaunts their wealth and fame while coming for posers and disrespectful “little girlies,” refusing to waste an opportunity to remind listeners how hot and cool they are. “You bitches really don’t understand that you cannot compete when you don’t compare,” they say in the spoken outro, closing the album with aplomb.

Sexy embodies all facets of the adjective: It’s ethereal and energetic, sassy and confident, brazen and packing punch. It’s Coco & Clair Clair at their fiercest and most bracing.