We shouldn’t jump to conclusions now should we? But as it was soon followed by further singles “New Shapes”, “Beg for You” and “Baby”, Charli’s commitment to bucking commercial trends seemed disappointingly absent. Seeing her lean in a more anonymous, obedient direction and embrace modern trends was an unpleasant spectacle.īut that was just one song, we should expect the lead single to be the song with the most hit potential, Charli was introduced to the world via the very uncharacteristic and radio friendly nostalgia bomb “1999” (a song which slaps nonetheless though). If pop punk took counterculture aesthetics and diluted them for mass appeal, Charli and those around her took pop music and distilled it for niche, counterculture appeal, something the phenomenon of camp has long done, and rarely so artfully.
These were fans she’d earned through her fearless, boundary pushing postmodern approach to pop music, through music that was tense, subversive, ethereal, visceral, euphoric, dystopian and eerily beautiful. Probably not so well, but it wasn’t what many of Charli’s established fans wanted to hear from her. “Good Ones” could’ve been sung by any one of the radio pop stars Charli has been quietly writing hits for for years. But those songs exploded with quirky, bombastic personality nonetheless. Charli has long embraced a “one for them, one for me” approach to her output, and some of her more commercial singles like “Superlove”, “I Love It” and “Boom Clap” rank among her best songs. Taken on its own merits, there isn’t very much wrong with the lead single for Crash: a supercharged ’80s power pop anthem with a solid structure and incredibly slick production by Max Martin disciple Oscar Holter, performed with a sheen of commercial professionalism. And then, in September 2021, she dropped her new song “Good Ones”. In 2020, her ambitious lockdown album How I’m Feeling Now-the creation of which was documented in the Alone Together. documentary-though it bore the artifacts of its rushed, DIY development, showed she could continue to rework her otherworldly anarcho-pop in new and exciting ways for as long as she wanted. A half a decade’s sonic experimentation eventually led to the release of Charli, in my opinion the crowning achievement not only of her career, but of pop music in the 2010s. Charli XCX has earned herself pride of place among my favourite artists, with a distinctive and groundbreaking style of pop that distilled and distorted the genre markers into a sound that abjured mass appeal in favor of intense and rebellious emotional expression. There’s different kinds of anticipation and rather than pure excitement, I’ve spent the last six months anticipating Crash with mounting hesitancy. Now, he’s dropped a sensational album, created with long-term mentor, Brian Eno.Crash was without a doubt my most anticipated album of 2022, however that does come with an asterisk. Alongside Headie and Fred, the album hosts features from the likes of Jamie XX, Sampha and FKA Twigs, all affecting the record their own way.ĭespite having already released music with an array of household names, it’s clear that Fred’s journey as an artist has a long and captivating road ahead of it. Last year, the multi-genre spanning producer was able to draw ever-popular rapper Headie One out of his comfort zone with their collaborative project, ‘GANG’. The unique sincerity this adds to the music acts as a reflection on Fred’s outlook on life and approach to friendships. “ If I can live through this next six months/ Day by day/ If I can live through this/ What comes next/ Will be/ Marvellous” The Blessed Madonna promises in the joyous crescendo towards the song’s end.įred’s approach to sampling is like no other, drawing pieces from snapshot moments and recordings on his phone to capture raw moments of thought and emotion from the people in his life. His latest track “Marea”, featuring unscripted dialogue from his good friend, dance-music peer and “rave shaman”, The Blessed Madonna, is a euphoric electro number drenched in an aura of hope and optimism for the music scene at large and boasts an inspiring outlook of the future. His cross-genre collaborative works have a deeply personal touch, and his solo work reads like a journal. A rising talent from London, Fred again… draws upon his reality and expresses it through music.
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