100 Greatest Songs of the 20’s So Far #70 The Dare – Girls

Released: 2022

Of all the would be saviours of Western civilisation, Harrison Patrick Smith was an unlikely candidate. For many, navigating the sexual politics of this century must feel like playing chess with gloves on, a maze with instant fuck sites on the one and hand and waiting three weeks just to like a post on the other. What do you do if you just want to do it?

Smith had been making music previously under the yes-please-and-thank-you guise of Turtlenecked, before a move to New York saw him fulfilling the roles of Jekyll schoolteacher by day and Hyde DJ by night. Bored in the tail end of the pandemic, he came up with a tune that was young, dumb and full cum as a means of playing a joke on his friends. When he listened back, he knew he had something.

Girls touchstones were archive; a double blue pilled early LCD Soundsystem, the snotty, skinny jump my bones appeal of The Strokes, plus electroclash and DIY acid disco. Put together in an hour and then all over in two minutes, perhaps it was also hinting at the patterns of something else too, but when you want “all girls, small girls, girls with dicks and call girls” then you don’t get to choose how it starts or prematurely ends. Harrison Patrick Smith broke the code and took us back to the future. It’s time to remember what got us all here.