How Charli XCX Returned To Her Rave Roots For ‘Loud and Bold’ New Album

My big struggle is deciding whether I care more about being the biggest artist I can be commercially or being critically sound,” Charli XCX says. “Then sometimes I land in this place of not caring about either of those things.”

For most of her decade-plus career as both a songwriter for other pop stars (Gwen Stefani, Camila Cabello, Selena Gomez) and a beloved solo performer herself, Charli has managed to strike an enviable balance between the two pop poles she has just described. The 31-year-old British artist has made inescapable hits like her 2014 Iggy Azalea collaboration, “Fancy,” which spent seven weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and more sonically experimental pop — including her celebrated pairings with SOPHIE, with whom Charli pioneered hyperpop — while establishing herself as a tastemaker with a track record for working with cutting-edge artists like Yaeji, Rina Sawayama and Caroline Polachek before the industry fully catches on.

Tough, playful and whip-smart, her track “Speed Drive” from the Barbie soundtrack is classic Charli and also her biggest commercial success since 2014’s “Boom Clap.” Now she’s gearing up for her sixth studio album, BRAT. (On Wednesday, Charli posted on social media to expect the album this summer and on Thursday released the project’s first single, the tough, pulsing “Von dutch.”)

The follow-up to 2022’s Crash is, she says, a club record evoking the illegal London rave scene where she started performing “when I was 14 or 15,” produced from a tight collection of sounds to create “this unique minimalism that is very loud and bold.”

“Loud and bold” could well describe the entire career of Billboard’s 2024 Women in Music Powerhouse honoree. As she chats over Zoom (wearing a white hoodie and a single gold star sticker on her chin) she’s characteristically frank, admitting she finds the time between albums challenging — “probably the reason why I eventually won’t be a musician.” But for now, with a new one finished, she’s gearing up for her life to return to a pop star pace.

What’s the concept of the new album?

This album is very direct. I’m over the idea of metaphor and flowery lyricism and not saying exactly what I think, the way I would say it to a friend in a text message. This record is all the things I would talk about with my friends, said exactly how I would say them. It’s in ways very aggressive and confrontational, but also very conversational and personal. And not in that boring way where artists are like, “This is my most personal record.” To me, it feels like listening to a conversation with a friend.

Do you feel like you’re in a unique position to showcase ideas and sounds from the club world to more mainstream audiences?

I think I’ve had a pretty big impact on popular music; I won’t lie. But it feels weird even saying that in a subtle way in this interview, to be honest. I don’t think it has ever been [my or my collaborators’] intention to transport elements of club or underground music to a wider audience; I think we’ve just been instinctual. There’s a spontaneity within my music that feels off the cuff, blunt and at the same time outlandish. It’s just this fearlessness, too. I don’t mean to sound arrogant, but I see it when I write in sessions for other people or with people that I don’t really write much with. It’s like … I don’t follow a rulebook of how to write a song.

For Crash, you intentionally stepped into the role of a major-label pop star, like cosplay. Is the new album’s direct approach a reaction to that?

It’s definitely related. The pendulum always swings for me. I think a good artist always has to re-form, reformulate and reclothe themselves, quite literally. You’re right, Crash was about me being signed to a major label [Asylum Records UK/Warner Music UK] and feeling like I’d never played that traditional, stereotypical major-label pop star game. I wanted to play this satirical role, so I was hypersexualizing myself, taking songs other people had written for me and using an A&R person for the first time in my career.

This record is the polar opposite. It’s not collaborative. It’s not me playing a character. It’s direct and honest. I really tried not to write love songs or songs about my romantic relationship. [She got engaged to The 1975’s George Daniel in late 2023.] There are a couple, but generally speaking, I wanted it to feel more gossipy, so it is a reaction to Crash. I’m quite a reactionary person.

You’ve written with and for a lot of other women. Has that been intentional?

There are a couple of songs I’ve written that have been for male artists, but it’s not a conscious decision. It just happened like that. I honestly don’t know that I would be able to write from a male perspective.

You’re receiving the Powerhouse award. What’s your relationship with power?

Some days you wake up and feel very powerful, or empowered, or in control, or confident, or whatever positive words that are related to power or a woman in power. But some days you wake up and feel worthless and small and insecure and not good enough. I don’t think that’s specific to me or my industry; I think that’s just human nature. It’s impossible to feel powerful all the time. For me, at least, that would feel like a lie.

There’s also a lot of power in vulnerability. This is cheesy, but I think when I’m most honest and true to myself, that makes me feel most powerful. Sometimes that upsets people, whether that’s people I work with or my fans or my family. There’s always someone to upset. You just have to ask if it would feel like a sacrifice to not make this decision the way you want to make it. That’s what I ask myself.

Are there specific moments in your career when you stepped into a greater level of power?

When I started working with [producer] A. G. Cook, when I started working with SOPHIE, there was this kinship and understanding that made me feel very powerful because I felt like we were on this unspoken journey together that not many other people could be on.

And then working with my friends — not weird Los Angeles friends that I’ve picked up at parties, but my friends I’ve had since I was 11. That feels powerful because there’s a level of grounding. To them, I’m not this person who is a pop star. I am their friend Charli who was once not very cool.

This story will appear in the March 2, 2024, issue of Billboard.