How Charli XCX Hears Colors and Makes Hits
A gifted songwriter with a cheeky aesthetic embodies a new model for musical success
Charli XCX is hardly a household name, but she’s well on her way to becoming the next big thing
The 22-year-old Brit sings the hooks and, more importantly, co-wrote two of the biggest and catchiest hits in recent memory—Icona Pop’s “I Love It” and Iggy Azalea’s “Fancy.” Her single “Boom Clap” from the Fault in Our Stars soundtrack reached No. 1 on the Billboard pop charts. Looking back, 2013's “I Love It” was a precursor to the confident, genre-hopping female sound that is one of the most popular styles in music right now.
Charli XCX is likely to be a big pop star, if she’s not already. But she has suggested she wants to be more than that—she wants to defy categorization altogether. The question is, does she have the chops to back it up? Is she a true artist or just a master of the catchy hook?
When I saw her concert recently at a small venue called Lincoln Hall in Chicago, it was clear that “Fancy” and “I Love It” were just the beginning.
Judging by the effusive reaction of the crowd and the raucous energy in the room, it will likely be one of the last times she appears in front of a few hundred people. She powered through a set of a little over an hour, proclaiming “pussy power” as men and women, men and men, and women and women danced together joyously.
There was no encore, an utterly refreshing development. She just rocked song after catchy-ass song and got the fuck out of town.
Now comes the arrival of Sucker, her sophomore major label album. Although it will likely be the first full initiation for a whole new crop of fans. She’s on the big stage now—recently appearing on Saturday Night Live—and we can now begin to prematurely judge her long-term fate.
Standing Out
If you’re not familar with XCX or her music, she’s sort of a cross between Katy Perry and Lorde (though considerably less dreary than the latter) with a cheeky punk rock aesthetic.
Her all-female band had a Runaways feel, dressed in cheerleader outfits. As a band they could use some work, and I’m sure her live show will evolve and get bigger. However the vibe is mildly rebellious and downright fun. I was surprised to hear her say that the Chicago appearance was one of the first to sell out on the recent tour.
She played several songs off her new album Sucker and they were filled with infectious hooks and instantly danceable beats.
“Break the Rules” sets the tone on Sucker. XCX projects this sort of rebellious party girl attitude, but there’s nothing dangerous enough to make anyone uncomfortable and the sound is very controlled, expertly produced and highly infectious. Part of what is going to make XCX so successful is that her music will be enjoyed equally by teenage girls and their mothers.
Her vocals establish a teens-take-the-town vibe:
“I don’t wanna go to school / I just wanna break the rules / Boys and girls across the world / Putting on our dancing shoes / Going to the discotheque / Getting high and getting wrecked”►
On “London Queen,” XCX brilliantly executes up-tempo, bubble gum pop rock, as she expresses awe at her arrival in Hollywood on the verge of stardom. She further explores the theme both lyrically and sonically on “Famous,” with a very repeatable, stomped-out hook:
“One night, I’ma gonna come and crash the party / Weren’t invited but we’re feeling so outrageous / Just like we’re famous”►
Her first commercially-released album, True Romance, didn’t get much play in the U.S., selling only 12,000 copies here. But when you listen to it, many of the songs feel like they’ve already been hits. And though many of the songs have been around for a couple years now, they fit right in with today’s pop landscape.
The defiant, unapologetically pop, female voice is perhaps the hottest commodity in the music industry right now. Take a look at the most played songs on Spotify in 2014, and you’re talking about Taylor Swift’s “Shake it Off,” Meghan Trainor’s “All About That Bass,” Jessie J’s “Bang Bang,” Echosmith’s “Cool Kids,” Sia’s “Chandelier,” Tove Lo’s “Habits (Stay High),” and Azalea’s “Black Widow.” This is not to mention Ariana Grande, Perry and Nicki Minaj. Or Becky G and Tinashe.
It’s a blessing and a curse for XCX, who has both helped create the trend with the megahits she’s already contributed to and must compete with it at the same time.
Born This Way
Much like Taylor Swift, Charlotte Aitchison was in many ways raised to be a pop star. The 22-year-old recorded her first album when she was 14, taking a loan from her parents. She played illegal raves at warehouses and delved deeply into the party and drug scene, by her own admission.
At the more mature age of 16, she got serious. She made a studio album, 14, when she was 18 (it wasn’t commercially released); an EP at 20; 2013’s True Romance; and now her rise to stardom seems imminent.
It is, after all, the songwriters who hold the real power in the music industry. And she can certainly write. She also collaborates with producer Ariel Rechtshaid, who co-wrote “Climax” with Usher, produced for Vampire Weekend, and won the Grammy for Producer of the Year in 2014, so it’s not like she doesn’t have resources.
However, the sense you get—or at least I did watching her live—is that these are her songs. XCX recently told the Washington Post: “The thing I hate so much about the music industry right now is that everybody thinks you have to become a brand to sell. I think that’s so weird. I obviously understand it, but I think the best artists are the ones who continue to change and evolve.”
You give up on not being a brand when you name yourself Charli XCX and make songs for the Hunger Games franchise—she collaborated on a song for the movie with Lorde. But pretending to be anti-establishment is her thing, and it’s this light-hearted resistance to stardom that will endear her to many fans.
Her evolution, though, will start with the release of Sucker, which includes more nods to a punk rock aesthetic. Keep in mind, we’re talking about the kind of punk where you might die your hair pink, but you’re not going to get in too much trouble. Nothing about her stage performance or lyrics suggest anything you would call edgy.
Any way you slice it, though, the young artist is a natural-born songwriter and the potential for growth in the music is there. She is, after all, only 22.
Sound In Color
XCX has said she has a condition called synesthesia that causes her to see/hear music in colors. Essentially the phenomenon is such that when one pathway in your brain is engaged, another automatically, involuntarily fires.
So while the average person listens to music and hears melodies and drums and guitars, she sees red, black, green. Reportedly, she prefers some colors/songs to others. I don’t know if this strange ability is the key to her songwriting and her ear for a hook, or what direction it will take her in, but there is one thing she has not captured yet.
Sucker is a tremendously fun listen and almost every song is instantly catchy. The relationship songs—“Breaking Up”; “Caught in the Middle” and “Need Ur Love”—could all be monster hits. “Boom Clap” already is one.
If you judge an album by how each song is, then it’s a really good album. But I suppose the thing that’s missing is that you don’t really feel anything listening to her work.
Her voice seems awfully processed on the record and the endless craftiness of the songs sort of works against her. There’s just no rawness; no direct connection from her soul to the listener. She may be laying herself bare, but perhaps we’re all too busy nodding our heads to the beats and swaying to the melodies to care.
The style keeps her from yet being in the class with other great U.K. songstresses like Adele and the late Amy Winehouse. They can make a hit that impacts you in the gut and the head at the same time.
Based on what she has said, XCX wants to be on that level. Or some other level. But not in a group with Miley Cyrus or some of the other pop artists that have left us wanting more this year.
XCX has a magic touch. But it will be her ability to ultimately break out of the very successful mold she’s already made for herself that determines her longevity. If she doesn’t want to become a brand, as she says, she will have to become something new. Because whether she likes it or not, she already is one.
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