Charli XCX

No thread on her yet. Her two singles released this year ('stay away', 'nuclear seasons') got the 'best new track' feature on Pitchfork and TheSinglesJukebox rated the later with a 7.83 which is quite a high score by their standards. Also it seems she's been getting the love by british press for a few years now, but I can't confirm that firsthand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBxC5bRbruQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1GNx2bwZa4

Is she named after a Star Trek episode?

From interview magazine http://www.interviewmagazine.com/music/brit-pop-girls#_ :

CHARLI XCX
FULL NAME: Charlotte Aitchison. “The XCX really stands for ‘kiss Charli kiss’ which is unbelievably crap.”

AGE: 17.

PROVENANCE: Hertfordshire.

SOUND: Pouty raps, fuzzy basslines.

INTERVIEW: How long have you been making music?
CHARLI XCX: I started writing my own things when I was about 8. I used to try to bully my friends into imitating the Spice Girls on the playground. Then I realized, Oh god, my career’s going nowhere, so I looked in the Yellow Pages and phoned up the first cheap studio that I found and started recording.
INTERVIEW: What’s your song “I Wanna Be Darth Vader” about?
CHARLI XCX: Well, last night on Britain’s Got Talent, there was this absolute twat dancing to
Michael Jackson in a Darth Vader suit, which put me off a bit, but I used to think Darth Vader was really sexy—the mask, the voice, the heavy breathing, and the way that his cape whooshes when he walks.
INTERVIEW: What’s your grand plan?
CHARLI XCX: Well, there are a huge amount of girls out at the minute and they’re all great, but I feel like I could take them all on. I like Lady Gaga’s music and I think her fashion is great, but I saw her on a chat show and I wanted to punch her in the face. I kind of like La Roux, but her voice sometimes really annoys me. That said, I recently noticed that I’ve been doing really high notes in my songs, and I’m like, Oh no, here it comes. I’m going to turn into La Roux. And I’ve just gotten a massively short haircut with a huge fringe. Next I’ll be going ginger.

God bless all these musicians before their PR agents get to them and they actually give fun interviews.
Great songs, by the way.

Whoops, meant to say "God bless all these youngish musicians while they're still giving fun interviews, before their PR agents get to them."

kinda confused by seeing people have their minds blown by her. she's ok i guess, need to hear way more though - i like what i've heard but i'm not fully convinced for some reason, seems a touch heavy-handed

Stay Away is definitely one of my favorites this year. Nuclear Seasons, not really.

Totally into "Nuclear Seasons" and I think I'm gonna go see her tomorrow at her first US show (!)

i love stay away. and valentine. haven't heard anything else other than nuclear seasons which a lot of people seem to like but i don't really get

the chorus in this is great http://soundcloud.com/charlixcx/youre-the-one/s-pU6Fs

Still waiting for something as good as Stay Away. Not even the Icona Pop song is close imo.

okay so this "super ultra" mixtape is just ridiculously great

It is!

cosign! this is probably the closest an album has come to approximating the feel of maxinquaye for me, sounds amazing late at night. rapping over "moments in love" is p much a direct route to my heart. it's a little messy, but the songs are really there. also i didn't realize she was only 20--she'll probably go for leaner production choices in the future.

Everything is consistently excellent. Also "Heatwave" is my jam.

It's almost as if... Someone made tumblr-pop that justified the adjectives and lurid colourscapes.

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/14932-various-artists-you-ha-ha-ha-lindstrm-remix/

Lindstrøm gives this shit a proper workout.

i really have no idea what to make of this album, like even whether i'm enjoying it or not

i feel like i'm on the brink of being completely YESSSSS THIS IS RESONATING DEEPLY WITH ME but i can't...quite...get...there and it's the kind of thing where if you're NOT on board emotionally it's kind of functionally useless

"you're the one" is a bit of a monster though

albeit i think i might like "you're the one" better if it didn't plunge shamelessly into its cheesy chorus?

the brooke candy verse on this is disappointingly terrible

have't heard the album but from the singles can attest that if you're on board emotionally they are the best ever

there's a vagueness that keeps me from being emotionally on board "you're the one" but that curving bass

really love the lingering the verses do on "you (ha ha ha)" too

Does she have her own "I Love It" on this? I am still curious to hear what she would have done with it instead of Icona Pop.

I'm into this newest single "what I like". she has a knack for cadence

streaming over @ pitchfork advance

This has very big Alisha's Attic vibes writ large all over it. It's a modern pop album that seems designed for people who grew up in the 90s, which is probably either really cute and endearing, or naff and silly, depending on your taste for talky-sung verses in the style of Siobhan Fahey when in Shakespeare's Sister.

Charli XCX herself seems very much a pop starlet for the twenty-something crowd, in the way she nonchalantly swears and sings about sexual encounters but it's all framed in this goth-pop cuteness with easy melodies and simple vivid imagery. I can see this album's relationship to 90's r&b being comparable to the way Anniemal took 80's disco and made it sound very pop but very chic, even though this is a lot more obviously dark and menacing.

aka the awful song with Brooke Candy made me nervous but I even don't mind that in the context of the album and You (Ha Ha Ha) is actually better than I remembered and the rest of it is great. The first three singles are still the best stuff here especially Nuclear Seasons but this is a pretty wonderful pop album.

as extravagant as charli's overload of stylistic reference points is, i don't think it's what's preventing this clicking for me - basically just don't think her songwriting is quite there yet. it's a bit overstuffed but the problem is less that and more her lack of a really distinct songwriting voice

or just, interesting words, or something

i think i'm the only person in the world that doesn't hate the brooke candy song. the second-to-last one "how can i" would be the dud if i had to pick one

You're not alone. Cloud Aura is one of her best. That said, True Romance is a let-down for me largely due to the production. My favorite track is What I Like, but even it has it's problems. Like why start of with a great intro that gets you all hyped up, only to never reference it anywhere else in the song? Still love it, but that's just one example of the many opportunities missed by this album. I expected it to be much more in the vein of Dance 4 U and Velvet Dreaming but the album's first half is like a 90's rehash of what Little Boots was doing with 80's pop.

I've been cool on her other singles but "What I Like" is marvelous.

this is awesome; the two-year-old songs thread in pretty seamlessly

weird but so far i prefer the album tracks to most of the singles (except "what i like" which wow). "like roses" and "take my hand" especially

black roses*

Really, really, really good record.

after seeing her live last week this album is finally seriously beginning to click for me

in a way i'm glad the singles never quite did it in isolation because i get to feel the rush of "YOU'RE JUST ELECTRIC BLUE" now instead

CUZ I CAN TASTE YOUR LIPS ON MY LIPS
YOUR KISSES TAKE ME OUT OF CONTROL
AND I CAN FEEL MY BLOOOOOOOOD
IT'S CRAWLING THROUGH MY VEEEEEEIIIIIIIINS

somewhere, shirley manson feels proud

brooke candy's rap on "cloud aura" is so so bad but the rest of it is so good

WHY YOU WANNA GO TO SLEEP
DON'T GO TO SLEEP
DON'T GO TO SLEEP
LET'S GO OUUUUUT

hmmm i gave this album a couple spins last week but i only actually liked about half of it (mostly the front half, but some later too), the rest just became this amorphous blur of whatever

it's taken me about a month and about...8 or 9 plays, i guess, to click

YOU'RE JUST ELECTRIC BLUUUUUUE is wonderful. all of this is wonderful.

except for brooke candy

Is "cloud aura" the same as on last year's mixtape?

yeah no changes as far as i can tell

"set me free" is ENORMOUS and shoulda been the lead-off single instead of "you"

I still don't get why "I Love It" didn't get the praise this is getting, I know it's noisy and brash but that's kinda the point?

This keeps getting better on repeated listens, it's not so much that it's a grower as

Wow, yes, it absolutely is.

yeah it absolutely is but it's also a significant improvement

I don't like the teenagers track at all, I think it's naff and tired, but I don't think she's improved anything. She's at a level that she could have acknowledged or reframed her theft to give them credit.

i was previously unfamiliar with "homecoming" and while "wink wink" is an obvious stylistic rip it's also a much better tune and isn't anywhere near as obnoxious

Love this one a lot.

Do like ss26 a lot but there's something borderline parodic about the tone of a lot of these songs so far. And I'm not sure rock ribbing is that interesting in 2026 when it's not front and centre culturally. Kinda think this is her taking the piss, having a laugh, doing a let me see what I can get away with album. Obv who knows what the final thing will be like!

The best bits in "Wink" aren't in the Teenagers track. Reminded me of Colin Newman - that repetitive one-note melody that somehow turns into a Huge Chorus

Hold on, David Cronenberg is on this album?

Full tracklist here -
https://www.instagram.com/p/Daf2HHYlCzr/?igsh=MTBld2NjczAwenozNg==

Magic Metal Montana

Hoping the cronenberg song is inspired by the shrouds (title sounds like it might be)

Does anyone else get a strokes demo/solo Casablancas vibe from ss26?

"camera" is floating out there because her team accidentally uploaded it to tiktok a few days ago or something and it's pretty good

i'm kinda expecting wuthering heights will be the better of her two albums this year but that doesn't mean this one is shaping up to be bad at all, if we get two very good charli albums this year i'm very happy

Yeah “Camera” is a lot of fun and certainly my favourite arrangement of the tracks released so far.

this is good but so far the only single that has felt fully formed to me is "wink wink". i feel like all the others merited at least one more go-around of the chorus, and this most recent one most of all.

that was a problem with wuthering heights too, all her songs are super short these days

Blame TikTok

Wuthering Heights 2026 - 12 songs, 35 minutes
Please Please Me 1963 - 14 songs, 34 minutes

1963 was for technological reasons too.

i should clarify that i'm not anti-short songs in general. "wink wink" for instance says all it needs to say in its 2 minutes and 2 seconds, it feels complete to me. and none of the songs on brat were epic odes either. but this one feels like it stops very abruptly.

xp there are plenty of 40 and even 50 minute albums around that time

Charli has been trying to put out shorter records, in different styles, far more frequently, for over a decade now. Angels hail the bytedance overlords that made it happen.

For vinyl it was less the LP limitation than 45s, right? They sound best at 3 mins or less? Plus of course you had radio formats that demanded short songs for fear of losing listeners. (Also there's the story that the mob liked shorter songs because they controlled the jukeboxes and more plays was more money.)

So technological + cultural factors, which I think is true again. Why put out a seven-minute song and only get credit for one stream, when you can have 3 songs under 3 minutes?

Charli xcx reopens her b.sides account and released ‘if you take away the music then what has she got’ as the last act of the b-side of the 'Music, Fashion, Film' era. pic.twitter.com/PmZdDDzKMi

— Info Charli xcx (@infocharlixcx) July 22, 2026

here's another b-side, "if you take away the music, then what has she got?"

ok this album is weird

i definitely like wuthering heights more but it's still pretty good. not everything works but the guitar tones are consistently great!

she should have just put all the b-sides on the album though

this is going to be super polarising but it's just like, pretty decent, not her best work but still a lot to like with plenty of ideas

first listen: sadly not for me at all, but I'm happy for folks who'll find something in it.

Wuthering Heights easily one of the year's best albums.

There are a few people doing the lords work making 80s style extended-12" mix version of Charli songs

Me and Ms. T got to hear MFF at one of the listening parties a couple weeks ago. I think the album is great - undoubtedly polarizing. "Persona" my favorite so far. "Card Declined" legit feels like a Wet Leg song. Unbelievably the David Cronenberg collab is apparently missing from the vinyl version of the album? Supposedly it wsa mixed too late to get to the master pressings in time which sucks because it's one of the weirdest ways a major pop album has ended - and a totally missed opportunity to have it end of a locked groove.

At the end of "2007" Ms T. and I simultaneously looked at each other and jinxed "total banger!"

I spy a special edition opportunity #cynic

they did something else with a locked groove instead apparently

Wuthering Heights easily one of the year's best albums.

this is the biggest problem with music fashion film, it can't compare to an album with "dying for you" and "seeing things" on it

Tape Notes podcast is out, I think I enjoy listening to her and her producers talking about making the record more than I enjoy listening to the records themselves.

(I do like this one though)

Driving home through winter rain tonight and “Chains of Love” came on, I cranked it and it almost took me to “Track 10” heights.

Not fully listened properly but while it's fine that she's making quickie albums like prince doing batman or whatever, and just releasing stuff that's obviously barely made it out the demo stage, it's such a rough draft mixtape thing, but for an album that's Charli and ag cook doing rock music, idk I expected more, just a bit more ambition in doing something new with rock music, like 100 gecs for example.

the guitar sounds on this are so much better than anything 100 gecs have ever done

This is pretty good, an excellent complement to WH.

yeah this record is okay, a lot of the songs feel half finished but they sound pretty good.

I really liked the song where she talks about her love for AG, it’s so sweet and made me think about how rare it is to hear expressions of platonic love in song

quickie albums … stuff that's obviously barely made it out the demo stage

arguably describes brat, too

Listening to that interview the demo feel was intentional, like they toyed around with bigger drum sounds and thought it took away from the immediacy (classic punk cop out, "it's not supposed to sound good"). Anyway I really like the restrained deployment of rock music elements and the very early '00s DAW chop-ups of guitar parts.

Actually, this album pairs well with Tricky's new art rock album.

this is almost what could have been the follow-up of sky ferreira's night time my time.

I will listen to Music Fashion Film sometime today but I did need to chime in that Wuthering Heights is my fave pop album in likely a decade

This is sounding better to me than a lot of the earlier released tracks made me anticipate and really enjoying the first listen.

Listening to it after work, persona is incredible. Magic metal Montana is a close second with no one lasts forever third. The ending of the album is so good. in terms of what they're generally doing with guitar textures, or rock riffs, i expected or would have liked something more balls to the wall. I like it though. The songs she's released all work better as part of the album than as singles.

Find the choice of cronenberg, and what a younger person might refer to as the three famous old white guys on the cover, not just a show of her clout, but maybe a statement about respect for old white dudes Who have shaped the culture. Find it weird though that cronenberg is talking about art, but art is not part of the album title, and there's not an artist on the cover too.

Art in the general sense, not visual.