Charli XCX

at any rate this album is amazing. and yes, "Set Me Free" is massive but it doesn't seem to be the direction Charli XCX wants to go with her singles. alas.

(incidentally, the "Set Me Free" producer's best known for working with _Meds_-era Placebo, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Nicola Roberts and Sohodolls, which is as good a triangulation [uh, with "tri-" replaced with "quad-" as necessary] of this album as you'll find anywhere.)

"i love it" feels clumsy and contrived and, crucially, totally unfun to me. i like don't-give-a-fuck music but it just repels me.

(katherine - picking up something i half-saw on twitter last night if i may, which is prob relevant here - your dislike of "tumblr" as a signifier. i'd say tumblr - regardless of the pockets of tumblr where this isn't the case - signifies decontextualisation above all to me, whether that's endless images/quotes plucked from the ether or the social justice kids or whatever...)

oh, and GREAT review btw

http://www.mtvhive.com/2013/04/23/charli-xcx-true-romance/

haha, that was actually prompted by reading a bunch of metacritic reviews of this very album. the thing is... tumblr is a huge site, with a huge and varied userbase; it's like how people say designs "look like Geocities," as if a site with millions of uses could be somehow aesthetically consistent in a way that isn't "this is how entry-level HTML from cookbooks in 1999 is probably gonna look."

my beef I think is that a lot of time it gets invoked as a kind of shorthand to sneak in pejoratives. like, if someone is trying to say that "this charli xcx album sounds like a thing teenage girls would love," then they should just say it -- and then think about why this is such an important thing to mention. or "this charli xcx album sounds trendy" -- how? why is that bad? etc.

(also, thanks!)

Ugh not feeling this at all, there's an underlying clumsiness to almost everything here and she's just not an enjoyable or engaging on-record presence. Awful voice too.

Agreed, and I even like some of her mixtape material. I just can't with this unfinished-sounding album.

Love it!!!

She covers 'I want it that way': http://www.popjustice.com/briefing/believe-when-we-say-we-like-it-this-way/114844/

every time i listen to this, the one with brooke candy is the only one that stands out to me

but then again it is the blatant 90s r&b homage so

the album really turns around after that track, i think. "what i like" and "black roses" are also very good.

i find myself rooting for her because she seems really likable but there's something gloopy about this record that i find a bit impenetrable. it's like listening to pop while having a head cold.

haha isn't that kinda the idea of tumblr-pop in the first place?

Supa Ultra was more consistently R&B-influenced IMO (and also led off with "Cloud Aura"). Their quality seems about the same to me.

well then that must be why i don't listen to a lot of tumblr-pop

i guess i mostly like pop to be bright and snappy and confident

idk i feel like she doesn't really put herself out there? i don't get a sense of vulnerability, it feels too hedged to me.

"Take My Hand" is by far my favorite of the singles. What a banger.

Agreed.

J0rdan you're not wrong, I just think it's amusing how the vaunted appeal and point of distinction of this music is also the thing likely to leave many pop listeners a bit cold. But the same point's probably been made many times upthread.

i find myself rooting for her because she seems really likable but there's something gloopy about this record that i find a bit impenetrable.

i wish she wasn't so likable tbh, or so eager to be liked - i feel like she's a really interesting voice and artist but there's a major label sheen, an eagerness to be pop, that doesn't sit quite right. like, i don't feel we should be judging this as "pop" at all - did we ever judge pj harvey or björk as "pop"? even though they were basically mainstream figures - but it's the album's doing that it positions itself like that.

maybe some people will parse it as contrived but i get a real sense of vulnerability from "set me free" and "grins"

or maybe not so much vulnerability but at the very least her performances on those songs feel like she is having an ~emotional breakthrough~

waitwaitwait. how are "set me free" and "you're the one" NOT vulnerable? like, you can level all manner of accusations at them but "not vulnerable enough" is just fucking bizarre. (or "hedged" for that matter -- I mean I can't think of a single emotional stop that isn't pulled out.)

FWIW I don't see her as anything close to pj harvey or bjork and I highly doubt she's aiming for that, so it seems like a non-sequitur. she's far more '80s than '90s. like, you should be looking to mall-pop and freestyle, not alt-rock.

The reference point that snuck into my head somehow was early Bananarama but I haven't yet relistened to Deep Sea Skiving to determine whether there's any actual basis for that. Possibly I subconsciously absorbed the Shakespeare's Sister reference upthread.

It's actually interesting to think about the album's (non)relationship to 90s alt-rock - the clear absence of that vibe is a very now quality IMO. If this was released in the mid-to-late 90s it might have sounded more like the first Imogen Heap album maybe?

OTOH I haven't actually heard any Alisha's Attic albums from that period so maybe I'm wrong about this.

The Goldroom remix of "You (Ha Ha Ha)", save the Macarena opening, is quite good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrrmtqVunt4

new song "interior" is kind of hilarious

Saw on twitter someone saying she did a Backstreet Boys cover at her gig in W. DC last night. I don't know anything about her, so maybe that is not news to you folks who do (or maybe it is).

the album's (non)relationship to 90s alt-rock - the clear absence of that vibe is a very now quality IMO'''

it might have come more from 'i don't care' than the other material but i get a vague shirley manson/garbage vibe, where does that fit into this non-relationship?

[Actually 'i dont care' made me think especially of the song 'jellyhead' (the motiv8 remix), which is a good thing]

"I Don't Care" is Republica's "Ready To Go" X Transvision Vamp which means that its relationship to 90s alt-rock is stronger than Charli's own material but not significantly so.

Can't see anyone mentioning Lock You Up, which I basically have in a loop in my head

"The Goldroom remix of "You (Ha Ha Ha)", save the Macarena opening, is quite good"
it is, including the macarena opening

this is like the 15th time I have heard a reference to republica in the past two months

Saw on twitter someone saying she did a Backstreet Boys cover at her gig in W. DC last night. I don't know anything about her, so maybe that is not news to you folks who do (or maybe it is).

See my previous post itt

ok this is amazing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPWcX-16A9Y

wow very nice

Yes, properly amazing. I've already played it six times.

like the song quite a lot, :/ at the video because how many more 'western pop stars having a zany time in japan' videos do we need.

the chorus feels more sugary than anything off 'true romance' but maybe i'm wrong on that point. more bubbly than take my hand, even.

You're not wrong. This is Radio Disney drivel. Such a regression from True Romance.

>:(

If this is what radio disney is like then i clearly need to be listening to a lot more radio disney

lmao @ someone who has no fucking clue about radio disney actually played when it was a thing

good song!

it's fizzy

lmao@ a grown ass man proud of being the world's only radio disney hipster, tbh. He was there...a l o n e

Loving this! I'm starting to think Charli XCX may be the best pop songwriter right now.

plenty of ppl (or 'grown ass men' b/c i guess those are the only ones whose opinions should be considered right) repped for radio disney actually: http://www.villagevoice.com/2000-03-14/music/all-ears/

lmao@ a grown ass man proud of being the world's only radio disney hipster, tbh. He was there...a l o n e

― Cousin Slappy

haven't been here long have you

The guitar riff under the chorus is just gorgeous

i really like the production on this a lot.... sorta cut copy-ish circa 'in ghost colours'

I've liked her more and more with each single. Juxtaposing the alphabet game with acoustic strums and video game whooshes is some genius.

it does sound like she says "you're smoking through my butt" though

you know, typical Radio Disney fare.

I dont think anyone has mentioned it so far but some of her vocal ticks remind me heavily of Gwen Stefani. Am I alone in this?

I mean I can easily picture this new song and Nuclear Seasons as Gwen Stefani fiddling with darkwave.

i don't know about here but i've definitely read no doubt comparisons to her before.