"Cool Girl" is a song recorded by Swedish singer-songwriter Tove Lo for her second studio album Lady Wood (2016). Lo co-wrote the song with its producers Jakob Jerlström and Ludvig Söderberg, who are known collectively as The Struts. The track was released for digital download and streaming on 4 August 2016 as the album's lead single. It was released to contemporary hit radio stations in the United States on 23 August and three days later in the United Kingdom.
"Cool Girl" is a downtempo electropop song with elements of techno and house music. Its lyrics were inspired by a monologue spoken by the character Amy Elliott-Dunne in the 2014 film Gone Girl. According to Lo, the lyrics are about the games people play in a relationship because they are scared to be vulnerable. Critics had diverse opinions about the track's meanings, with some of them noting its themes of casual relationships. The song received positive reviews, commending its production and lyrical themes. "Cool Girl" entered the top 30 in Australia, Denmark, New Zealand and Sweden. It was certified platinum in Sweden and gold in Australia, Denmark and New Zealand.
A music video for "Cool Girl" premiered on 19 August 2016 as the first installment of the Tim Erem-directed short film Fairy Dust, which features six songs from Lady Wood. In the clip, Lo dances in a motel parking lot with a group of dancers while in another scene she is seen shaven-headed and writhing on top of a glass coffin in a desert. Lo performed "Cool Girl" in 2016 on television shows The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Swedens Idol and The X Factor Australia. Lo's performance on Idol garnered negative reviews from viewers, who criticized the singer for touching her crotch on a family-friendly show. Lo later included "Cool Girl" on the set list of her Lady Wood Tour in 2017.
Background and development
The writing process for "Cool Girl" started when Tove Lo was taking a day off during her Queen of the Clouds Tour (2015) in Copenhagen, Denmark. At her hotel, Lo received a bass line from producers Jakob Jerlström and Ludvig Söderberg, who are known collectively as The Struts. They asked Lo if she wanted to write lyrics to it. Lo liked the track and set up her bedroom studio and started listening to it repeatedly. She had recently watched the film Gone Girl (2014) and analyzed the "Cool Girl" monologue by a character portrayed by Rosamund Pike, who talks about being a "cool girl". Lo said; "I just remember this monologue ... where [Pike's character] says she's changed a lot [of] things about herself to become someone that she thought her husband would want". Inspired by that scene, Lo wrote the melody, chorus and pre-chorus with sarcastic lyrics and sent the track to The Struts. In early 2016, Lo and The Struts reunited in Stockholm to finish the song.
"Cool Girl" was written by Tove Lo and The Struts, who also produced it, programmed it and played the bass guitar, keyboards, guitars and percussion instruments. They recorded the track at Wolf Cousins Studios in Stockholm. John Hanes engineered the song while Serban Ghenea mixed it at MixStar Studios in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Tom Coyne mastered it with assistance of Randy Merrill at Sterling Sound Studios in New York City.
Music and lyrics
"Cool Girl" is a downtempo electropop song that incorporates elements of techno and house music, with a length of three minutes and nineteen seconds. Its instrumentation incorporates a deep synthesizer bass line. It is written in the key of A minor and set in common time signature with a tempo of 102 beats per minute. Lo's vocals range from the low note of E3 to the high note of D5. During the chorus, a synthesizer riff is played and vocal inflections are used in the background. "Cool Girl" is divided into two chapters, "Fairy Dust' (the high) and "Fire Fade" (the comedown), and is included in the first chapter of Lady Wood, which discusses the "early stages of attraction" of relationships. Lo said the musical style of the track was inspired by the music played at the minimal techno raves she had attended during the two years before writing the song.