Tove Lo’s abandoned robot lover is ready for revenge. On Friday, Tove released her single “Borderline,” — co-written with Dua Lipa! — and the song’s video, which follows her ex-AI lover, Annie 3000, disguised as a crash test dummy kidnapping Tove and avenging her.
“Borderline is a song about being on the edge of love. The drama you cause inside yourself and with another person if you feel insecure. You test them,” Tove said in a statement. “This song has existed for a long time, and I’ve always felt it was incredibly special, so getting to release it now has sort of a full-circle feeling.”
The Nogari-directed video follows a crash test dummy seemingly coming to life to kidnap Tove Lo, who’s seen tied up in a trunk and later taken to a beat-down room. After being fed LSD, Tove Lo dances nude while covered in car oil before making out with Annie 3000. The two drive away together but are quickly found by the cops. The video ends in a fiery crash.
The video is a continuation of the visual for her Dirt Femme lead single “No One Dies For Love,” which followed Tove falling in love with the robot. After Tove abandoned the robot, it was seemingly seen self-destructing. But during the visual’s credits, a Mexican woman was seen fixing the robot, saying in Spanish, “Don’t worry, my love. Nobody dies from love.”
That’s why we land in Mexico City: Annie 3000 was resuscitated to be a crash test dummy, where she found Tove Lo and got her revenge. “I hope my fans love the bizarre love story that unfolds in this video, it’s my favorite kind of thing!” the singer said.
Tove Lo wrote “Borderline” while in the studio Dua Lipa before the Albanian singer released her LP Future Nostalgia. During their writing session, the pair of women wrote “Cool” from Dua’s album and “Borderline.”
“The first day Tove Lo and I got into the studio we wrote this song and I am so excited for it to come out into the world!!!” wrote Dua Lipa on Instagram.
“Tons of love to @DUALIPA for trusting me with this baby!!” Tove added on social media. “This is the very first song we wrote together and the very start of our friendship so this feels extra special. Now everybody hold your breath…”
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The single release comes amid the start of Tove Lo’s Dirt Femme world tour. She’ll perform in New York on Friday before making her way across the U.S.
“I’ve looked back on how my femininity has helped and hurt me throughout my life,” she told Rolling Stone ahead of the release of Dirt Femme. “And I think the album has that tone to it. I’m bringing up all these questions and feelings and emotions that don’t necessarily have answers to them. It’s just more my current place of wonder.”
