A Beginner’s Guide to Charli XCX
Charli XCX was the “pop star of the future” for so long that one of my favorite youtubers quipped that, “she might always be that way”. The future Charli XCX was a part of began in 2024 with the Brat Summer. In understanding how Charli XCX reached this point, I hope to show not only some fantastic music but also on the many trends of the 2010s and how they evolved to where we are today.
While Charli XCX’s debut album True Romance was released in 2013, the first time you probably heard her music was instead as the featured vocalist on Icona Pop’s “I Love It” and then in 2014 on Iggy Azalea’s “Fancy”. These two songs show a side of Charli that’s important, but in very different ways. “I Love It” is full force music made for a festival, something that you lose your mind fist pumping away when you hear it. “Fancy” is a white Australian rapper hopping on the trend of DJ Mustard influenced trap. In both cases, Charli is the highlight, bringing a youthful diva energy that gives both songs something great. Charli only has the hook and bridge on “Fancy”, but she solidly outperforms Azalea on the song in personality, delivery, flow, and lyrics.
After this came “Boom Clap”, a song featured in the film adaptation of “The Fault in Our Stars”, a fantastic, beautiful song, and the other side of Charli’s music. For as well as Charli plays the trashy rich girl at the house party, she also has a maturity and grace that allows her to perform mid-tempo songs or ballads incredibly. Each of these talents will continue to evolve and manifest herself in new ways as her career goes on. But all these songs are distinctly a part of their time, and Charli is the pop star of now. How did she get there?
The answer is that it wasn’t just her. In 2016, Charli XCX released the EP Vroom Vroom, and her career would never be the same. On this EP, she teamed up with a hero of mine and one of the most forward-thinking musicians of the modern era, SOPHIE. SOPHIE’s career is so distinct, incredible, and visionary that I struggle to write about her as a side character in this story. Suffice to say, her music is defined by heavy industrial percussion, dizzying effects, and it being years ahead of any of her peers. SOPHIE passed away in 2021, but her music is a testament to her greatness, and she lives on through it. On the title track of Vroom Vroom, we see SOPHIE’s futuristic and dissonant aesthetics matched with Charli XCX’s attitude and love of stars like Britney Spears combined for a song that mixes hip-hop, pop, and electronic music in a breathtaking manner. All this in the same year as Drake’s “One Dance” and The Chainsmokers’ “Don’t Let Me Down”.
The other major collaborator that would push Charli forward was producer A.G. Cook. Cook is known primarily (outside his work with Charli) for being the creator of the music label P.C. Music. The labels aesthetics of hyperactive, internet-era pop are at once incredibly distinctive and influential but are also difficult to describe. Regardless of whether you like the label “hyperpop” or not, Cook became Charli’s Creative Director in 2016, and 2017 would see Charli release two mixtapes.
The first, Number 1 Angel, showcases what separates Charli from her peers. 2017 was a year where Katy Perry and Taylor Swift both failed to properly adjust to changing trends, leading to downturns for them both. From track one, “Dreamer”, you can tell that Charli is deeply plugged in, beginning her album with a cavernous pop-trap song reminiscent of Post Malone or Future. From there comes a mix of those slower, Travis Scott influenced songs and a faster interpretation of that sound which would become pop’s way forward in the oncoming years. Despite that shift, Charli delivers classic coy pop on “Ily2”, the incredibly catchy “Babygirl”, and a wonderful ballad with “Emotional”.
The second, Pop 2, trends far more experimental. There’s still that enormous feeling, but the vocal effects and signature industrial elements of SOPHIE’s production are far more up front. “I Got It” is a straight up hip-hop posse cut where CupcakKe really shines. The project is good, but its final track, “Track10”, is a masterwork. If you have no interest in Brat or anything else in this article, listen to “Track10”. It’s glitched out, magical, and a strong contender for the greatest song of the 2010s.
2019 would see Charli XCX release her third album, titled Charli. The album is a grand expansion of the ideas on her previous mixtapes, and it illuminates another of her most important attributes: her skill as a collaborator. Having friends is a powerful skill in the music industry, and on Charli we can see the power in it. The album is filled with her usual collaborators (Pablo Vittar, Cupcakke, Brooke Candy), an army of critical darlings (HAIM, Christine and the Queens, Big Freeda), and a spattering of the near future’s stars (Troye Sivan, Lizzo, and Kim Petras). Despite the star-studded lineup Charli still shines, with some of her best songwriting on “White Mercedes” and “Official”, and radio-ready tracks with “1999” and “Blame it On Your Love”(a remake of Track 10). If there is one highlight it’s the mind-blowing “Shake It”, where A.G. Cook’s production really shines.
2020 saw the COVID album How I’m Feeling Now, which is largely an extension of Charli’s style. I recommend it if you enjoy that album, but I see no reason to dedicate much time to it. 2022 saw Charli release her 5th album Crash which was a large push towards to the mainstream. I found the album rather bland, but your mileage may vary. Finally, in 2024, we are here: Brat.
Brat is a masterwork. The iconic album art, merely the album’s name in an arial font over a lime green background, earned a fair bit of derision which was, of course, the point. The album’s title and overarching aesthetic is meant to be garish. Opulent and cool, but garish, like Paris Hilton or the Kardashians. That was the goal of the first single and highlight: “Von Dutch”, a full-on club dance banger. The entire album is influenced by club culture and club music.
The album is filled with fantastic party tracks like “Club Classics”, the previously mentioned “Von Dutch”, “B2B”, “Talk Talk”, and “Mean Girls”, but it also has deeply emotional moments. “So I” is a heartbreaking letter to SOPHIE, and “I Think About It All the Time” is a mature reflection about aging, settling down, and potentially having a child. Perhaps the greatest achievement of the album is its ability to make narratives around the music industry interesting. Even before the remix, “Girl, So Confusing” was a deeply compelling song about the struggles of finding solidarity with women in an industry constantly pushing women apart, and then Lorde came in and gave an incredible verse on that theme. “Sympathy Is a Knife” reflects on Charli’s insecurities based on other women in the industry (which may or may not be referring to Taylor Swift). On top of that there are the fantastic “360”, “Apple”, and “365”, all of which simply fuck.
More than anything, the album is the right album for this moment. After years of Zanax-fueled spaced-out songs topping the charts, the public once again wants songs with a pulse. Moreover, the meteoric rise of Chappell Roan proves that there is a serious demand for queer artists. So, when a fantastic artist with deep queer connections releases a club-inspired album that’s arguably her best it’s only natural that it takes off. Whether or not you were involved in the Brat summer, I hope this article is a sufficient gateway into SOPHIE, A.G. Cook, PC Music, and one of the greatest minds in popular music.
