Charli XCX Is About To Drop Her Best Album
It's the year of the brat
Some Background (For Those Living Under A Rock)
Pop music is a tricky genre because it’s so deceptively simple. There is a formula to it that works, and a current sound that can be tapped into in order to make the music relevant for the era it exists in. The issue with it is its accessibility, if anyone with a producer friend and a decent microphone can make it, then how exactly does one stand out. Also, if you make it too relevant to the modern times, it runs the risk of becoming dated with time. Furthermore, how do you impress critics if you're inherently making something agreeable? How do you also make it challenging without also losing the normies in the process? Thankfully, Charli XCX has always had the answers to all these questions.
While I really enjoyed her first two records at the time they came out, they were very contemporary to their times. True Romance was about as early 2010s as you could get, with indie sleaze electro production, most obviously exemplified in the chipmunk vocal sampling “You (Ha Ha Ha)”. Sucker was less indie and more pop, with huge mainstream crossover hits like “Boom Clap” and “Break The Rules”. Most pop stars would’ve been happy continuing down a path of getting radio play and making songs for movies, but she knew that this was not the future. The future, of course, lied with PC Music.
Next came Vroom Vroom, Number 1 Angel, Pop 2 — an incredible three project run that would solidify Charli as a risk taker. It was a landmark for the pop genre that helped to re-contextualize Charli’s sound and platform familiar faces like Caroline Polachek and new greats like Dorian Electra and Tommy Cash. Charli and her PC Music affiliates birthed what many consider to be “hyperpop”, translating the novelty of the label’s early cuts into brighter colors and more palatable structures.
All three of those projects were either EPs and mixtapes, but the magic didn’t stop with her next album Charli and her current best record, how i’m feeling now. The latter really captured the essence of her original thesis, which I would summarize as “falling in love at the club”. Locking down during quarantine with the help of her fans and producers like Cook, umru, Danny L Harle and Dylan Brady of 100 gecs, she crafted her most complete and independent record yet. There were no quirky collabs to steal the spotlight away, it was very much a pure and focused look into Charli’s primal wants and needs. Covid took the most important thing away from Charli, that in-person sense of community and partying with people she loved. It was that yearning towards what she wanted so badly but couldn’t have, coupled with incredible production, that made it her very best.
After this came Crash, which I quite enjoyed, but something told me that it was a detour for her. It lacked the experimentalism of her PC Music catalog and its lyrics felt way more general. It was similar to Mitski’s Laurel Hell, in that it felt purposely divorced from personal detail and more geared towards wide appeal. Even so, it was a great record with some of my favorite cuts of hers like “Beg For You”, “Baby” and “Every Rule”.
Brat, Her Next Best Record
While there’s no way to tell for sure without first hearing it, I’m going bold and brash with it and saying that Brat will be her best. The first single “Von dutch” produced by Easyfun, takes the raw energy of how i’m feeling now and brings it into a world where parties are allowed, making it feel more real and grounded. Lyrically, she is accepting her lane as a “cult classic”, the fixation of an obsessed and highly online but sizable niche. The tracks she played at her Brooklyn Boiler Room set, entitled “Spring Breakers” and “365 Party Girl”, are a new evolution for her sound as well, more in your face and explosive than ever before.
Something about this new wave of her sound feels more true to her than nearly anything I’ve heard from her. Especially considering her engagement to George Daniel and his potential involvement in the production itself, which we already got a taste of on the pair’s remix of Caroline Polachek’s “Welcome To My Island”, I just sense we are in for something special. Even just this cover screams to me that we are in for a graduation from version 3.0 to 4.0.
She could’ve went independent after her last record, she didn’t. She could’ve continued to keep the PC Music affiliates at an arm’s length in favor of more high profile producers, she didn’t do that either. Everything about this record seems to be a product of an artist that was able to make the choices she wanted to. She said something recently to the effect of “this is an album for the club girls with sheer shirts and nipples out”, and this seems to be what her fans have wanted for her all along. There is no posturing towards radio play or needing validation through the dinosaur organization known as “The Grammys”. This is going to deliver on what she wants, what her fans want, and most importantly for this article, what I want. We all deserve to be brats, and Charli is going let us all do so. I couldn’t be more excited.