The Singles Jukebox

I guess one could argue this whole site is kind of a Burn Book for pop music...

[5.58]

Total writers: 19
Highest score: [10]
Lowest score: [3]
Controversy index: 1.66

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: By a wide margin the most competently written and performed part of Mean Girls The Movie The Musical.
[4]

Rachel Saywitz: I watched a horrible bootleg of Mean Girls on Broadway a few weeks ago -- horrible in that the camera focused primarily on Cady’s actress and that the musical itself is horrible, with dull and unremarkable music, fatphobic jokes that seemed so tonally out of place for a show that debuted in 2018, and a cast that mostly didn’t bother to expand beyond their movie counterparts. I was watching it as the release of the Mean Girls: The Movie: The Musical drew near because I was curious what the hullabaloo over Reneé Rapp was about; the now B(ish)-tier pop star played Regina George on Broadway from 2019 'til its closure in 2020. I don’t know what I was expecting -- some kind of snarky bi-sexual-babe take on the character? Something at least a little similar to what I had seen of her in movie trailers, which showed off her low growl of a speaking voice as if to elicit both fear and lust in even the enviest peers? But on Broadway, I just saw someone hot and blonde playing a mean girl -- no spunk or disarming friendliness, just someone with a nasty attitude. Thankfully, some time away from the stage, and the closeness of a film camera (not to mention a lack of body shaming), has given her a chance to rough up some of Regina’s smoothest edges. “Not My Fault” offers up a Reneé (and a perfectly non-apologetic Megan Thee Stallion) who not only enjoys being a bully, but who I would love to be bullied by. This Regina doesn’t hide in platitudes; she sings the truth with a citrusy ting: “You came with her but she might leave with me,” she shrugs amidst a funky bass groove that squelches like an arrhythmic heartbeat. She’s the quintessential bully of my childhood -- strikingly hot; flutteringly soft in public while actually being totally unapproachable; probably, definitely, at least a little bit gay. In posters advertising the new Mean Girls, I’ve noticed that Reneé’s Regina occupies the center of every group photo -- a marked change from the original’s promotion which squarely had Lindsay Lohan’s Cady as the star to watch. “Not My Fault” shows why and how this change happened. In this decade where bimbos and Barbies are celebrated non-ironically, where cultural ideas of femininity have simultaneously expanded and shrunk drastically, we’ve shifted from being afraid of Regina George to welcoming her with open arms into a hot girl society, where “girl” is always subjective but we always “wake up hotter than [we were] yesterday.” And okay, we’re a little mean. But it’s not our fault!!
[7]

Nortey Dowuona: To be quite frank, I get why this happened. It's good synergy, it's a good idea, but: has this idea already existed? Let's check: JoJo - Sabotage (ft. Chika); Gwen Stefani - Rich Girl (ft. Eve); Queen Latifah & Dolly Parton - Joyful Noise; Reneé Rapp - Tummy Hurts (Remix) (ft. Coco Jones); Reneé Rapp & Alyah Chanelle Scott - The Sex Lives of College Girls. But what about this song? Oh. Reneé Rapp - Not My Fault (ft. Megan Thee Stallion) -- a smug, pretentious song about being cool and rich. A classic? Who knows? Sing this to me in 20 years.
[5]

Read all our writers' blurbs and rate and join the conversation at The Singles Jukebox mothership!