Charli by Charli XCX
Charli is the third studio album by English singer Charli XCX. It was released through Asylum and Atlantic Records UK on 13 September 2019. The album will be supported by a world tour, beginning in Atlanta on 20 September 2019. Charli was preceded by the singles "1999" (with Troye Sivan), "Blame It on Your Love" (featuring Lizzo), and "Gone" (with Christine and the Queens); as well as the promotional singles "Cross You Out" (featuring Sky Ferreira), "Warm" (featuring Haim), "February 2017" (featuring Clairo and Yaeji), and "2099" (also featuring Sivan). Upon release, the album was met with critical acclaim. Background Charli XCX revealed in June 2019 that her album would feature 15 tracks and 14 collaborations. She also debuted "Gone" with Christine and the Queens at Primavera Sound in Barcelona on 30 May and "2099" with Troye Sivan at the Go West Fest in Los Angeles on 6 June. On 13 June, Atlantic Records posted the cover art for the album on their official website, with the file titled "Charli-Album-Artwork", and the cover also displaying the title. The track list, title and release date were then listed on Amazon.co.uk and Apple Music, in advance of Charli XCX's official announcement.
Forget song of the summer—2024’s undisputed album of the summer (northern hemisphere version) arrived in early June with a slime-green album cover and wall-to-wall bangers that would launch Charli xcx’s career to stratospheric new heights. (Cue news anchors worldwide grappling with the sociopolitical ramifications of “being brat”.) For years, the self-directed English artist enjoyed a reputation buzzier than “cult favorite” yet not quite “main pop girl”, but with the release of her sixth studio album, she hadn’t just captured the zeitgeist—she’d become it. If you didn’t see it coming, well, neither did Charli. “I really was preparing for this album to be for my fanbase only, and not really break outside the walls of that at all,” she tells Apple Music’s Zane Lowe with typical candour. Nevertheless, she presented the concept to her label with a manifesto she’d written—things she’d wanted to say since 2016’s paradigm-shifting <i>Vroom Vroom</i> EP. “‘On this record there’s going to be no traditional radio songs, because we don’t live in that world now,’” she told them. “This fanbase I have built is so hungry for me and my peers and our slightly-left world of pop/dance music—they’re hungry for us to succeed. That doesn’t mean that we have to do any pandering to any other side of the industry. We just have to do it for them because they’ve championed us for so long, and that’s all we need to light a fire.” Not content to rest while that fire’s still burning, Charli’s also committed to single-handedly keeping the remix industry afloat. You could call the full-length remix album yet another shrewd marketing move, though the project was in the works well before <i>BRAT</i> blew up. Here, a cross-generational who’s who of cool kids mingles in the smoking section of fall’s most exclusive party, where NYC garage-rock legends rub elbows with genuine pop divas and mystical Swedish rappers. And for all <i>BRAT</i>’s messy rawness regarding the complications of being a woman in the industry, the remix album brings together a slick-talking Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande at her glitchiest, Robyn flexing her ’90s bona fides, Tinashe basking in her own long-awaited shine and naturally, the Lorde remix that broke the internet. Brat summer is dead. Long live brat summer!
