UK-based singer Charli XCX is no stranger to the United States music charts. She has most famously played support on summer pop radio-friendly hits like 2012\u2019s \u201cI Love It\u201d with Icona Pop and 2013\u2019s \u201cFancy\u201d with Iggy Azalea. Charli herself has not been fully able to integrate her experimental sounds into the pop mainstream. Instead, she has occupied a space on social media and Spotify reserved for experimental pop with a cult-like following.<\/p>\n
\u201cCharli\u201d is only the third studio album in Charli XCX\u2019s discography. Her commitment to experimental sounds resulted in two extended mixtapes in 2017 in the place of studio-produced LPs. Half a dozen songs from the new album were dropped as singles, and they left me excited but nervous with anticipation. It was unclear what exact tone Charli was aiming for on this studio release.<\/p>\n
Leading up to the album’s release, Charli adamantly expressed on social media the personal nature of her new songs. I was not exactly reassured by this sentiment when she released \u201cBlame it On Your Love,\u201d featuring newly-minted pop supernova Lizzo. The single reworked the ethereally experimental song \u201cTrack 10\u201d from her last mixtape, \u201cPop 2,\u201d into a more radio-friendly bubblegum hit. If this was the direction of her new album, I was hesitant.<\/p>\n
But then came the release of singles \u201cGone\u201d and \u201cFebruary 2017,\u201d featuring Christine and the Queens and Clairo and Yaeji, respectively. \u201cGone\u201d marries vulnerability with a hard-hitting beat and dramatic percussion breakdown that makes me want to dance while angry-crying, reveling in both isolation and self-realization.<\/p>\n
\u201cI see myself, and I look scared and confused\/Wait, did they just talk? Why is it too loud?\/Do they wish to run through me?\u201d are my favorite lyrics from the track. They convey the all-too-familiar college feeling of being stuck in a room full of people making you feel intensely unseen.<\/p>\n
The less conventionally produced \u201cFebruary 2017\u201d delivers lyrically what I find to be the best work on the album. On the surface of the short, dainty, bouncy electro track is a longing to repair a relationship after some serious missteps. When Charli sings, \u201cHope I get one more chance\/Hope I get one more call\/I only know what’s good once I have lost it all,\u201d you can feel her reveling in the mistakes of her past relationships.<\/p>\n
Despite the personal intimacy of \u201cCharli,\u201d the body of work still includes party-goer anthems. \u201cClick\u201d features underground pop\u2019s latest rising star Kim Petras and Estonian rapper Tommy Cash. The track celebrates luxurious squad-style partying, and ends with a musical coda that can be closely equated to the sound of ice in a blender \u2014 and I absolutely adore it.<\/p>\n
\u201cCharli\u201d presents the listener with a 15 track journey covering both personal relationship woes and party anthems all the same. Personal vulnerability is enhanced with expertly placed features that somehow never feel overbearing or distract from Charli\u2019s ownership of the album\u2019s narrative.<\/p>\n
In the end, I echo Charli XCX\u2019s review of herself, which she wrote on Twitter: \u201cCHARLI IS A 5 STAR ALBUM AND IM A SUPERNOVA \u2014 THATS THE ONLY REVIEW YOU NEED TO READ TBH.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
UK-based singer Charli XCX is no stranger to the United States music charts. She has most famously played support on summer pop radio-friendly hits like 2012\u2019s \u201cI Love It\u201d with Icona Pop and 2013\u2019s \u201cFancy\u201d with Iggy Azalea. Charli herself has not been fully able to integrate her experimental sounds into the pop mainstream. Instead,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":70207,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,10],"tags":[582,4189],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fordhamram.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69925"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fordhamram.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fordhamram.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fordhamram.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fordhamram.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69925"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/fordhamram.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70208,"href":"https:\/\/fordhamram.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69925\/revisions\/70208"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fordhamram.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fordhamram.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fordhamram.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fordhamram.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}