![]() ![]() Just when mainstream stardom seemed as if it could be beckoning, she veered the other way with the uneven, pop-punk influenced ‘Sucker’ in 2015. Her debut album proper, 2013’s ‘True Romance’, combined a clear love of clean pop melody with an eclectic ear for subversion, sampling the likes of Gold Panda and Blood Orange. As Charli notes to NME: “I don’t feel like I’ve had a very traditional trajectory…”Īs a teenager, the Essex-raised artist took out a loan from her parents to fund the recording of her unreleased promo debut ‘14’, which remains a fun, scrappy listen. While a shift towards valuing honesty, relatability and authenticity takes hold elsewhere – and the pop star certainly also has a frank and direct dialogue with her fans – Charli XCX is equally interested in pop’s more ludicrous main characters, and has a keen grasp of both absurdity and excess.Ĭompared with her previous releases, this year’s ‘Crash’ – her first Number One album in the UK – marked a tonal shift for an artist who has simultaneously rejected and courted the mainstream over the course of her decade-plus career. Elsewhere on the tour, she was candid about her real reasons for not performing it, telling fans she finds its close emotional link to one of her most beloved collaborators tough. In a perfect offering for Angels who bombard her with constant requests for fan-favourite ‘Taxi’ – her unreleased collaboration with the late, pioneering producer SOPHIE – the singer played fans out of her biggest show to date at Ally Pally earlier this year by blasting it over the venue soundsystem. But we’re both too lazy so we’ll park the idea for next year” “Lorde and I were going to dress up as each other for Halloween. After a fan famously rocked up at a past meet-and-greet and asked her to autograph an anal douche – prompting days-worth of truly surreal discourse – Charli responded by selling enemas bearing her signature as part of her official merch line, while also taking aim at those positioning her as a “helpless damsel” in a statement. This is hardly the first time that Charli XCX has gamely joined in with this kind of lighthearted piss-taking. It’s definitely a break the internet moment.” We’ll just park the idea for a year when we can be bothered, but the thought was there. I’ll just be you.’ Then we both realised we’re as lazy as each other when it comes to putting effort into Halloween. And I was like, ‘Hey, I’m thinking about being you for Halloween, it’s all a good vibe, how do you feel about it?’” she recounts, laughing. “I didn’t want it to seem like I was trolling, so I actually texted Lorde. Somewhere out there, an oblivious taxi driver proudly owns a forged version of Lorde’s autograph by Charli herself. Still, a couple of people have been genuinely fooled. At show after show now, fans rock up with handmade signs demanding that she “play ‘Royals’”, Lorde’s 2013 breakout hit on one occasion, Charli (jokingly) claimed that she ghost-wrote the song for Ella Yelich-O’Connor. Comparisons have persisted ever since, mostly as one of her fandom’s many in-jokes. “I thought I could be Lorde for Halloween, and maybe cover ‘Royals…’” she ponders.īased on a now-beloved meme among Angels – the witty name she’s given to her fans – the hypothetical outfit riffs on Charli getting mistaken for Lorde in a comedy interview eight years ago. She casually announces that she’s been on the blower with a certain pal from New Zealand to discuss a joint Freaky Friday-esque costume idea. “Having said that, I did have a really, really good idea,” Charli suddenly exclaims, back in London and (relatively) fresh-faced following Paris Fashion Week. “Because I am sort of… surrounded by gays who weirdly know how to do it, the pressure’s really on, you know?” she confides in NME, in a gravely serious tone. For Charli herself, the association with the spookiest night of the year has been weighing on her heavily. Maybe it’s permanently ingrained in the memory after her show at London’s O2 Academy Brixton on All Hallows Eve in 2019 filled the venue up with punters wearing PVC devil horns perhaps her latest album ‘Crash’s blood-splattered links to David Cronenberg’s 1996 psychological thriller of the same name plays its own part. For some reason, Halloween and Charli XCX appear to go hand in hand.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |