★★★★★★★★★☆
Writing and recording an album - front to back - in the four walls of your own home is a hefty challenge, not to mention the global pandemic currently swallowing the world. But for pop scientist Charli XCX, she seized the opportunity to jump and swerve every barrier and create how i’m feeling now. And it’s just as much of a contender as any other pop album released this year.
Pushed out with so much haste there was barely time for hype, Charli welcomed collaborators through a new email domain and garnered the (mostly ecstatic) fan consensus of beats and lyrics through Instagram comments. It’s a stark reminder that even in isolation, we’ve never really been more connected.
‘I just wanna go real hard’ repeats Charli in the sledgehammering opener Pink Diamond atop an intense wave of squealing synthesisers. It feels instantly exclusive to the PC circle. The party-hard smell is reminiscent of Charli’s U-turn EP Vroom Vroom – both are a flamboyant acid trip perfumed in flirtatious bubblegum pop.
As the album progresses, how i’m feeling now becomes much more of a punch of angst warped in scratching sonics and autotune. With the EDM-infused Anthems being a thundering temper tantrum against our robbed normalities, it’s Charli at her most confessional. But she shares her woes through an industrial rapture of nauseating synths opposed to a box in a Church. Tracks like party 4 u also bring this sing-shout style that harks back to her pop-punk LP Sucker.
The album dips in into the pulsating cry for a party, but also for a Domino’s pizza night with friends. This is most prevalent on the reimagined Click. It’s a hose of audacious noise on the 2019 version, but now it’s an electro sentimental, whispered longing of a hug from a pal.
The album is an ode to her lover – who she’s been quarantining with since the pandemic erupted. The cosy detonate is about as pop as Unlock It got in Pop 2 – and her fervent continue to feel like shots of glitter. Claws, with its Disney-inspo high pitched ‘I like everything about you’ smothers any signs of innocence with its racy connotations (the clementine metaphor won’t be forgotten for some time) and industrialised production. But, even though thematically written for her boyfriend, lyrics like ‘party time, hop inside’ feels like it’s just as much for the fans.
The liquid D&B i finally understand heavily lends itself to something Mura Masa would conjure up, and the resentful enemy uses steels beats and a jerking melody. But it’s these tracks that tell us, like so many others during quarantine, Charli has done a psychoanalysis on herself. We have more time on our hands than ever, so it’s hard not to notice our flaws.
The finale track, Visions, sees Charli tip-toe her processed vocals on atmospheric waves. It’s intense, Kill Bill getaway-style round-off is an epic way to finish the entire album.
The almost unpolished styling of the entire album feels wildly appropriate - reflecting the mood of a world in disruption. After all, when passing beats through emails and your living room being a studio, it seems right to have it a little rough around the edges.
Charli’s exceeded all expectations with this album and has shoved any low-brow stereotypes to one side. This isn’t just because of her ‘never been done before, put it in a blender etc.’ approach to pop, but because she successfully steered through the pressure of making a quarantined album in a month. It's an album for the digital age. This could be a blueprint for making music in the ‘new normal’.
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