If you’ve been following Cat & Calmell over the past year (or as far back as 2023 like me), you’ll know Cool Star has already been living rent-free in their world as what they call their “unofficial theme song.” Now, it’s finally ours too – and it lands with exactly the kind of playful self-awareness you’d hope for from two pop stars who refuse to take the glitter too seriously.
At its heart, Cool Star is about that weird gap between the fantasy of the pop star lifestyle and the reality of actually living it. In conversation with producer Lucy, the duo unpacked the disconnect: “It’s glam in theory, so people tend to have certain expectations about how you live or what your lifestyle looks like, and it’s one which continuously proves to be far from the truth and also very humbling.”
And you can feel that tension in the track itself. It’s lush and sparkly, sure, but there’s also something a little tongue-in-cheek about the way the production leans into its shimmer — like it’s in on the joke.
The music video takes that irony even further. It’s an affectionate send-up of mid-2000s Australian culture, pulling references from Corey Worthington’s infamous sunglasses-and-party-boy fame, to the notorious Southern Cross tattoos that defined a whole era. The result is nostalgic, funny, and biting all at once — a reminder that the pop star fantasy has always been as much about image and myth as it is about music.
Cat & Calmell admit this one’s a nod to the “It girl personas we wish we could live up to.” It’s aspirational and self-deprecating all at once — a pop song that sparkles on the surface while quietly winking at you underneath. The vocal delivery drips with attitude, but you can sense the playfulness in the way they bend their lines, never fully buying into the glossy ideal they’re describing.
Cool Star doesn’t try to be cool in the conventional sense. Instead, it’s Cat & Calmell doubling down on their own version of what pop should feel like: shiny, self-aware, and unafraid to poke fun at its own mythology.
