Rare DM Turns Adult Meanness Into a Sleek Dark Wave Single

Erin Hoagg knows how to flip a moment of irritation into a full-scale track. For “Mean Girled,” the new single from her upcoming Rare DM album Attention, she starts from something small — the kind of adult pettiness that drags on without permission. The song builds that feeling into a sleek, dark wave structure: a danceable bassline, synth washes, and Hoagg’s cool delivery that turns rumination into something sharp.

“I hate worrying about people I don’t even care about,” she says, describing the involuntary mental loop that drove the writing. “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.’” She references the logical fallacy “poisoning the well” — an old wartime tactic of contaminating water supplies — and connects it to her own experience with adults who commit to misunderstanding. “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.”

Hoagg directed the video herself, shooting it across two ferry rides with Calvin Stark on camera, right after a hair appointment. “Being on a boat felt appropriate,” she notes. “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 arrives May 29.