A Listener’s Guide to Charli XCX

When Charli XCX debuted in 2011, larger-than-life stars like Rihanna and Katy Perry dominated the charts. With a fearless attitude, a young Charli carved out her own lane with a dark, synth-pop sound and arena sized choruses. Over the next decade, she would go from performing in illegal warehouse raves to pushing the boundary of what can be considered “pop.”

Her new studio album, Brat, is a return to the underground scene where she got her start. In celebration, jump into the shapeshifting star’s back catalog.

At 14 years old, Charli released music on MySpace with money loaned from her parents. Two years later, she inked a record deal with Asylum, a subsidiary of Atlantic. To help find her sound, they flew her out to Los Angeles where she partnered up with Ariel Rechtshaid.

Rechtshaid wound up producing over 60 percent of True Romance, her debut album which is a soundtrack of dark, moody pop inspired by the ’90s. Youthful angst is a common thread throughout the album, the melodies undeniably catchy.

Despite releasing two well-received singles — “Stay Away” and “Nuclear Seasons,” both produced by Rechtshaid — in 2011, Charli’s popularity exploded the following year when Icona Pop, a Swedish Pop duo, released “I Don’t Care,” featuring her vocals. The song became a global hit but does not appear on True Romance.

“What I Like,” a song with a high-octane introduction reminiscent of a Guy Ritchie film, is a standout track. Not only was it released as the final single from the album, it served as the perfect gateway for the bigger singalong songs Charli would soon be known for.

Charli, wasting no time after her debut, enlisted hitmakers like Rostam (Vampire Weekend), Stargate (co-producer on Rihanna’s “Diamonds”) and Benny Blanco (Maroon 5’s “Moves Like Jagger”) to conquer the sophomore slump. The resulting record, Sucker, proved she had the makings of a major pop star.

The album is engineered with high-fidelity sound, every track containing at least one earworm moment. Everything comes together on “Boom Clap,” the album’s lead single. The verses are sung in a soft, pouty voice while the chorus ushers in her signature Charlie chant.

Initially released in association with The Fault In Our Stars film, “Boom Clap” is a masterclass in sugary pop production. Unsurprisingly, it’s both her highest-charting single and most streamed song as a solo artist. For fans of more straight-forward pop, start here. 

In 2015, Charli linked up with SOPHIE, the producer who would push the pop star deeper into the left field than fans at the time would expect. In place of the pop sheen found on her previous full-length album is a futuristic blitz of sounds.

Vroom Vroom is full of mechanical textures, assertive melodies, and a range of distorted vocals. The pace of each track is like being strapped into a rollercoaster ride with malfunctioning brakes: you lurch forward with jerky stops along the way. 

The title track starts the EP with a series of commanding synth stabs, hydraulic sounds, and a clanging industrial snare, perfectly matching the party-crashing, Lambo-smashing confidence found throughout the rest of the record. 

Despite only being four tracks, Vroom Vroom was a pioneering record for the current generation of hyperpop acts. With her influence, Charli introduced SOPHIE and the adjacent PC Music collective’s production styles to a larger audience.

After putting out two mixtapes, Number 1 Angel and Pop 2, Charli announced her third studio album. Featuring a star-studded list of collaborators, including Troye Sivan, Lizzo, and HAIM, Charli is a clear shift away from the avant-garde slant she had been employing between 2015-2018. 

Whereas the production is safer, Charli still takes stylistic risks. There are the expected upbeat tracks, but Charli exposes herself more than she had previously done. On “I Don’t Wanna Know,” Charli channels Prince with a ballad about stressing over whether or not she wants a damning confession from her lover. Meanwhile, on “White Mercedes,” she tells her partner she doesn’t deserve them. 

When the COVID-19 pandemic brought the world to a halt, people picked up new hobbies. For Charli, she recorded a brand new album in six weeks while isolating at home. Throughout the process, she sourced help from her audience on social media.

In spite of the cultural uncertainties, How I’m Feeling Now is a record full of energetic, glitchy electropop. “Pink Diamond” and “Visions” are the perfect bookends for this album, too. The former contains a sinister vibe, while the latter escalates into a pulsating tornado of sounds.

In a documentary chronicling the making of How I’m Feeling Now, Charli shares deep insecurities about herself and her relationship of seven years. “claws” is meant to be a letter to her boyfriend, but the song’s repeating hook (“I like everything about you”) doubles as self-love anthem for herself and the audience. Considering the short runway, How I’m Feeling Now is one of Charli’s most impressive bodies of work. 

As the last album of her first label contract, Charli referred to Crash as her “major label sell-out” record. She also described it as “poptastic” on TikTok. True to her word, Crash is Charli XCX as a fully realized pop star. The manipulated vocals remain, but many hyperpop elements are gone, replaced with clean, radio-friendly productions. It became her first #1 album in the UK and highest-charting effort in the States.

Crash’s mainstream success doesn’t equate to a cookie-cutter formula, though. Charli, as always, has her high-heeled clad foot on the gas. On “Beg For You (ft. Rina Sawayama),” she effectively leans into Gen Z’s obsession with nostalgia by interloping September’s “Cry For You.”

Then there’s the Ian Kirkpatrick-produced “Move Me,” a track with a ballad-esque chorus that shows Charli in her most vulnerable state.

On multiple occasions, Charli has claimed that Crash was a departure for her, but, in a way, it’s a culmination of her fearless examinations of the music landscape.