Dear listeners,
I don’t think there’s a single song I’ve listened to more over the past few weeks than “360,” the endlessly quotable, deliriously catchy synth-pop song by one of my favorite working pop stars, Charli XCX.
I believe that most great pop music strikes a precise equilibrium between the smart and the stupid, and few artists working today understand that balance more intuitively than the 31-year-old English singer-songwriter born Charlotte Aitchison, whose rich and prolific career I’m celebrating with today’s playlist. Charli’s back catalog is deep and some of her songs can be as self-referential as an episode of “Arrested Development,” so ahead of the release of her highly anticipated album “Brat” on Friday, here’s a chance to catch up.
I first heard Charli’s music in 2011, when I was hypnotized by her early single “Stay Away,” a dark and immersive ballad that sounded like a photo negative of T’Pau’s 1987 bubble gum jam “Heart and Soul.” (I sequenced those two tracks back-to-back on an iPod playlist I listened to incessantly that summer.) Two years later, “Stay Away” appeared on Charli’s debut full-length, “True Romance,” a brilliant pop album that should have been as big as, say, Katy Perry’s “Prism” or Miley Cyrus’s “Bangerz” (to name two giants of 2013) but failed to break through beyond a small but fervent cult fan base that came to be known as (what else?) Charli’s Angels.
Over the past decade, that fan base has grown, and Charli has come to occupy her own unique space somewhere between the A-list and the underground. She’s had flirtations with mainstream success, usually as a featured artist (her brash hook was the best part of Iggy Azalea’s 2014 smash “Fancy”) or a songwriter (you can hear her voice in the mix of Icona Pop’s 2012 anthem “I Love It,” which she helped write). But Charli has ultimately remained a little too adventurous and uncompromising for superstardom. As she put it in a recent profile for British GQ with characteristic shrugging candor, “I know that if I suffered in silence, pushed through it and didn’t say what was on my mind, and maybe got like a brow lift or whatever, I could probably operate in a more commercial world.” The singles from “Brat” find her sounding more comfortable and creatively fulfilled than ever in that middle ground. As she puts it on the kinetic “Von Dutch,” “Cult classic but I still pop.”
This playlist is a chronological tour through Charli XCX’s many eras, from her time as a precocious club kid to her more recent reign as a forward-thinking pop experimentalist. Her discography is loads of fun but it can also be overwhelming, so if you’ve previously been intimidated by it, consider this a road map. I had such a hard time whittling this playlist down to 11 tracks, though, that I’ve included 10 more recommendations in the Bonus Tracks, if you’re wondering where to go next.
In the meantime, grab the keys to your lavender Lamborghini, fill it up with a thousand pink balloons and get ready to party, Charli-style.
I’m your favorite reference, baby,
Lindsay
Listen along while you read.
1. “Nuclear Seasons”
Let’s start at the very beginning, with this lush opening track from Charli’s 2013 debut “True Romance.” Representative of the ’80s-inspired sounds and emotional melodrama that define that album, “Nuclear Seasons” depicts a heartbreak so brutal and all-encompassing that it just might be radioactive.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
2. “Stay Away”
The first Charli song I ever heard and still one of my all-time favorites, this Ariel Rechtshaid-produced ballad is full of moody atmosphere and doomed romance: “Do you remember when I said, that first time we met, ‘Stay away,’” Charli croons on the chorus. “Why couldn’t you stay away?”
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
3. “SuperLove”
Though she’s put out quite a few classic albums and memorable mixtapes, Charli’s discography is also peppered with some excellent one-off singles, like this giddy, effervescent bop released in late 2013. Those handclaps!
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
4. “Breaking Up”
In the summer of 2014, Charli had her biggest solo hit yet with the dreamy “Boom Clap.” Rather than trying to replicate its formula, her subsequent album, “Sucker,” was full of sassy pop-punk and iconoclastic lyrics (the leadoff title track even included a prescient jab at the pop producer of that moment, Dr. Luke). One of my favorite “Sucker” songs is this glammy kiss-off, which takes a hilariously blithe approach to a relationship’s demise: “Everything was wrong with you, so breaking up was easy to do.”
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
5. “Vroom Vroom”
This sleek and brazenly minimalist 2016 single represents a pivotal turning point in Charli’s career, when she stopped chasing pop success and veered off into her own lane. She also found some simpatico new collaborators in the PC Music collective, including A.G. Cook and the visionary artist Sophie, who co-produced her experimental “Vroom Vroom” EP.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
6. “Boys”
Another irresistible one-off single, from 2017, this chiming, tongue-in-cheek ode to daydreaming about boys (*Super Mario coin noise*) featured a playful, star-studded music video.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
7. “Unlock It (Lock It)” (featuring Kim Petras and Jay Park)
To date, I’d say Charli’s full-length masterpiece is “Pop 2,” an imaginative and futuristic 10-song mixtape that balanced her most outré sensibilities with infectious melodies. It was also highly collaborative, co-produced with Cook and chock-full of featured artists. The then-rising star Kim Petras and the K-pop rapper Jay Park make cameos on this highlight, which captures the bubbly apprehension of a crush.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
8. “Gone” (featuring Christine and the Queens)
Speaking of apprehension, this 2019 duet with the French singer Christine and the Queens tackles an experience that you don’t often hear depicted in a pop song: the chill of social anxiety. As Charli put it on Instagram at the time, “This song is about breaking down but it’s also about breaking free. It feels like one big external scream.”
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
9. “Party 4 U”
During the early days of Covid lockdowns, Charli began a livestream series that allowed her fans to watch as she worked on a new album she would eventually title “How I’m Feeling Now.” The particular emotional experience of the pandemic combined with this creative transparency resulted in some of Charli’s most vulnerable music yet. I’m partial to this melancholic, mid-tempo track, which weaves various Auto-Tuned melodies into a colorful sonic tapestry.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
10. “Constant Repeat”
Charli streamlined her sound for the 2022 release “Crash,” which she described with dry knowingness as her “major-label sellout” album. For all the conceptualism, though, “Crash” briefly brought Charli back into the mainstream that had long eluded her: It became her first No. 1 album in the United Kingdom and her first to hit the Top 10 in the United States.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
11. “360”
Finally, here’s the one I’ve got on constant repeat right now: the wryly funny, self-mythologizing opening track from “Brat,” featuring an instantly iconic music video that places Charli among her fellow underground It Girls like Chloë Sevigny and Rachel Sennott. “I went my own way and I made it,” she sings at the beginning. Now you know.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
The Amplifier Playlist
“The Ultimate Charli XCX Primer” track list
Track 1: “Nuclear Seasons”
Track 2: “Stay Away”
Track 3: “SuperLove”
Track 4: “Breaking Up”
Track 5: “Vroom Vroom”
Track 6: “Boys”
Track 7: “Unlock It (Lock It)” (featuring Kim Petras and Jay Park)
Track 8: “Gone” (featuring Christine and the Queens)
Track 9: “Party 4 U”
Track 10: “Constant Repeat”
Track 11: “360”
Bonus Tracks
Here, in chronological order, are 10 honorable mentions that almost made the cut: “Take My Hand,” “Sucker,” “Out of My Head,” “Track 10,” “Focus,” “No Angel,” “Next Level Charli,” “Forever,” “Lightning,” “New Shapes” … wait, that’s already 10?!
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