"you're the one" is a bit of a monster though
― flamenco drop (lex pretend), Wednesday, 27 March 2013 20:55 (eleven years ago) link
albeit i think i might like "you're the one" better if it didn't plunge shamelessly into its cheesy chorus?
the brooke candy verse on this is disappointingly terrible
― flamenco drop (lex pretend), Wednesday, 27 March 2013 20:57 (eleven years ago) link
have't heard the album but from the singles can attest that if you're on board emotionally they are the best ever
― katherine, Wednesday, 27 March 2013 21:41 (eleven years ago) link
there's a vagueness that keeps me from being emotionally on board "you're the one" but that curving bass
― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Wednesday, 27 March 2013 21:46 (eleven years ago) link
really love the lingering the verses do on "you (ha ha ha)" too
― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Wednesday, 27 March 2013 21:49 (eleven years ago) link
Does she have her own "I Love It" on this? I am still curious to hear what she would have done with it instead of Icona Pop.
― boxedjoy, Wednesday, 27 March 2013 22:48 (eleven years ago) link
I'm into this newest single "what I like". she has a knack for cadence
― monotony, Sunday, 31 March 2013 01:54 (eleven years ago) link
streaming over @ pitchfork advance
― monotony, Tuesday, 9 April 2013 15:07 (eleven years ago) link
This has very big Alisha's Attic vibes writ large all over it. It's a modern pop album that seems designed for people who grew up in the 90s, which is probably either really cute and endearing, or naff and silly, depending on your taste for talky-sung verses in the style of Siobhan Fahey when in Shakespeare's Sister.
― boxedjoy, Wednesday, 10 April 2013 22:50 (eleven years ago) link
Charli XCX herself seems very much a pop starlet for the twenty-something crowd, in the way she nonchalantly swears and sings about sexual encounters but it's all framed in this goth-pop cuteness with easy melodies and simple vivid imagery. I can see this album's relationship to 90's r&b being comparable to the way Anniemal took 80's disco and made it sound very pop but very chic, even though this is a lot more obviously dark and menacing.
― boxedjoy, Wednesday, 10 April 2013 22:58 (eleven years ago) link
aka the awful song with Brooke Candy made me nervous but I even don't mind that in the context of the album and You (Ha Ha Ha) is actually better than I remembered and the rest of it is great. The first three singles are still the best stuff here especially Nuclear Seasons but this is a pretty wonderful pop album.
― twinkin' and drinkin' and ready to fly (Alex in Montreal), Thursday, 11 April 2013 03:20 (eleven years ago) link
as extravagant as charli's overload of stylistic reference points is, i don't think it's what's preventing this clicking for me - basically just don't think her songwriting is quite there yet. it's a bit overstuffed but the problem is less that and more her lack of a really distinct songwriting voice
― flamenco drop (lex pretend), Thursday, 11 April 2013 10:38 (eleven years ago) link
or just, interesting words, or something
i think i'm the only person in the world that doesn't hate the brooke candy song. the second-to-last one "how can i" would be the dud if i had to pick one
― monotony, Thursday, 11 April 2013 13:03 (eleven years ago) link
You're not alone. Cloud Aura is one of her best. That said, True Romance is a let-down for me largely due to the production. My favorite track is What I Like, but even it has it's problems. Like why start of with a great intro that gets you all hyped up, only to never reference it anywhere else in the song? Still love it, but that's just one example of the many opportunities missed by this album. I expected it to be much more in the vein of Dance 4 U and Velvet Dreaming but the album's first half is like a 90's rehash of what Little Boots was doing with 80's pop.
― Cousin Slappy, Thursday, 11 April 2013 17:45 (eleven years ago) link
I've been cool on her other singles but "What I Like" is marvelous.
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 11 April 2013 17:47 (eleven years ago) link
this is awesome; the two-year-old songs thread in pretty seamlessly
― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Tuesday, 16 April 2013 18:53 (eleven years ago) link
weird but so far i prefer the album tracks to most of the singles (except "what i like" which wow). "like roses" and "take my hand" especially
― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Tuesday, 16 April 2013 19:19 (eleven years ago) link
black roses*
Really, really, really good record.
― monotony, Wednesday, 17 April 2013 01:59 (eleven years ago) link
after seeing her live last week this album is finally seriously beginning to click for me
in a way i'm glad the singles never quite did it in isolation because i get to feel the rush of "YOU'RE JUST ELECTRIC BLUE" now instead
― flamenco drop (lex pretend), Monday, 22 April 2013 19:51 (eleven years ago) link
CUZ I CAN TASTE YOUR LIPS ON MY LIPSYOUR KISSES TAKE ME OUT OF CONTROLAND I CAN FEEL MY BLOOOOOOOODIT'S CRAWLING THROUGH MY VEEEEEEIIIIIIIINS
somewhere, shirley manson feels proud
― flamenco drop (lex pretend), Monday, 22 April 2013 19:59 (eleven years ago) link
brooke candy's rap on "cloud aura" is so so bad but the rest of it is so good
― flamenco drop (lex pretend), Monday, 22 April 2013 20:01 (eleven years ago) link
WHY YOU WANNA GO TO SLEEPDON'T GO TO SLEEPDON'T GO TO SLEEPLET'S GO OUUUUUT
― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Monday, 22 April 2013 20:02 (eleven years ago) link
hmmm i gave this album a couple spins last week but i only actually liked about half of it (mostly the front half, but some later too), the rest just became this amorphous blur of whatever
― dyl, Monday, 22 April 2013 20:03 (eleven years ago) link
it's taken me about a month and about...8 or 9 plays, i guess, to click
― flamenco drop (lex pretend), Monday, 22 April 2013 20:04 (eleven years ago) link
YOU'RE JUST ELECTRIC BLUUUUUUE is wonderful. all of this is wonderful.
except for brooke candy
― twinkin' and drinkin' and ready to fly (Alex in Montreal), Monday, 22 April 2013 21:02 (eleven years ago) link
Is "cloud aura" the same as on last year's mixtape?
― Tim F, Monday, 22 April 2013 22:33 (eleven years ago) link
yeah no changes as far as i can tell
― monotony, Monday, 22 April 2013 22:42 (eleven years ago) link
"set me free" is ENORMOUS and shoulda been the lead-off single instead of "you"
― monotony, Monday, 22 April 2013 22:43 (eleven years ago) link
I still don't get why "I Love It" didn't get the praise this is getting, I know it's noisy and brash but that's kinda the point?
This keeps getting better on repeated listens, it's not so much that it's a grower as
― boxedjoy, Monday, 22 April 2013 22:50 (eleven years ago) link
something else that I was thinking of how to explain before I hit enter, oops. It's like it's really simple but sticks way more than the disposable pop she clearly adores.
― boxedjoy, Monday, 22 April 2013 22:51 (eleven years ago) link
I love that mixtape so much but "Cloud Aura" wouldn't be the tune I'd carry over from it.
― Tim F, Monday, 22 April 2013 22:51 (eleven years ago) link
i never heard the mixtape - how does it compare to the album tim?
"i love it" is just completely rotten imo
― flamenco drop (lex pretend), Tuesday, 23 April 2013 07:52 (eleven years ago) link
I haven't heard the album so I can't compare - but the mixtape is shimmering cloud-R&B which by that description should be awful but actually is excellent - "Cloud Aura" is pretty indicative of the overall sound but there's some more discoid and/or balladic stuff on there and there's no other raps.
― Tim F, Tuesday, 23 April 2013 07:58 (eleven years ago) link
There are some songs down the end of Super Ultra that could have slotted in fine, on here but for the most part the album is much stronger, which of course it was always going to be given that it has all those pre-release singles on it.
I'm a big fan of "I Love It" (which has had plenty of praise, btw - perhaps not on ILX but certainly elsewhere), but it's not something that would gel with the rest of this record at all; too daphne & celeste / bananarama. it's pummelling, brash, throw-your-hands-up-in-the-air-sometimes sort of stuff; none of the songs on true romance even remotely approach that kind of aggression.
― monotony, Tuesday, 23 April 2013 12:11 (eleven years ago) link
and yes there is a stray comma in that first sentence, oops
― monotony, Tuesday, 23 April 2013 12:12 (eleven years ago) link
Yeah, "I Love It" would sound totally out of place on this but I think it's strange that there's so much dislike for it on its own.
― boxedjoy, Tuesday, 23 April 2013 18:27 (eleven years ago) link
"i love it" did really well on the ilm poll despite not being overwhelmingly praised here (and met with boos and hisses during the results rollout)
― dyl, Tuesday, 23 April 2013 22:58 (eleven years ago) link
yeah i'd be interested to learn what is quite so rotten about "i love it" - as was mentioned upthread, obviously it's loud and obnoxious - but that's the whole purpose of the track, to convey that feeling of just not giving a fuck
― monotony, Tuesday, 23 April 2013 23:06 (eleven years ago) link
I don't _love_ it as much anymore, but I like it in the same way I like Shampoo. And it's not like Icona Pop didn't sound more or less like this for years, so it's not like they "sold out" or whatever accusation you want to level.
― katherine, Tuesday, 23 April 2013 23:07 (eleven years ago) link
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.
― katherine, Tuesday, 23 April 2013 23:20 (eleven years ago) link
(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.)
― katherine, Tuesday, 23 April 2013 23:58 (eleven years ago) link
"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...)
― flamenco drop (lex pretend), Wednesday, 24 April 2013 07:48 (eleven years ago) link
oh, and GREAT review btw
http://www.mtvhive.com/2013/04/23/charli-xcx-true-romance/
― flamenco drop (lex pretend), Wednesday, 24 April 2013 07:50 (eleven years ago) link
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!)
― katherine, Wednesday, 24 April 2013 21:25 (eleven years ago) link
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.
― Matt DC, Thursday, 25 April 2013 11:02 (eleven years ago) link
Agreed, and I even like some of her mixtape material. I just can't with this unfinished-sounding album.
― Cousin Slappy, Thursday, 25 April 2013 15:31 (eleven years ago) link
Love it!!!
― calstars, Monday, 6 May 2013 01:38 (eleven years ago) link
She covers 'I want it that way': http://www.popjustice.com/briefing/believe-when-we-say-we-like-it-this-way/114844/
― kinder, Wednesday, 22 May 2013 17:52 (eleven years ago) link
Auteur is the least objectionable descriptor … I think she’s cultivated a vibe, or whatever
I just think the efforts to brand her as both a pop star and innovator seem contradictory in a way that is kind of cringe for her fans … they want her to both be a chief Keef style innovator of new styles and a drake style pop star of platforming cool ideas and until the success of this recent project she had the strengths of neither and the weaknesses of both (ie platform was niche and ideas were pilfered)
It does feel like the zeitgeist and her strange midpoint position in it has finally aligned (probably closer to how Keef has somehow also managed to match it) in a way that feels closer to “innovative” than “platforming”—even if the ideas aren’t hers they’re arranged in a way which seems uniquely compelling
― xheugy eddy (D-40), Friday, 21 June 2024 01:27 (one week ago) link
Do you mean economically? Because it's easier now for a single person to realize musical ideas than at any time in history, by like a million miles.
― Jordan s/t (Jordan), Friday, 21 June 2024 00:45 (thirty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
This is actually part of why (note again I'm interpreting "auteur" in the specific sense that matttkkkk appeared to be deploying it - i.e. with the relevant focus being on distinction rather than self-creation): there are so many artists realising their musical ideas simultaneously - and the barriers to doing so are now so low - that the prospect that any one artist can be associated with "defining a new scope" for a type of music for more than about a month is just very slim. I'm instinctively reluctant to consider Charli XCX in those terms but that reflects the historical moment as much as or more than it does her position within it.
― Tim F, Friday, 21 June 2024 01:37 (one week ago) link
I can’t think of another genius level auteur operating in this genre/domain. Maybe only producers? Gaga probably but her music doesn’t speak to me like Charli’s. I guess Madge is the template but not quite the same.
― assert (matttkkkk), Wednesday, 12 June 2024 21:19 (four days ago) link
Let’s reign this kind of shit in a bit, can we ?
― xheugy eddy (D-40), Sunday, June 16, 2024 6:24 AM (five days ago) bookmarkflaglink
this is way out of line. ilm has been a much better place without your snide toxicity masquerading as truly idiotic "criticism" and for its sake i hope you consider stepping out of the room again.
― he/him hoo-hah (map), Friday, 21 June 2024 02:59 (one week ago) link
The person who dismisses huge swaths of artists is the one who’s being reasonable & im the one being snide and toxic! Ok
― xheugy eddy (D-40), Friday, 21 June 2024 03:57 (one week ago) link
I didn’t know id made an enemy of map honestly. lol I usually like your posts. Not sure why it came to this but I genuinely found that post off putting… constructing an ilx canon of one of one geniuses seems contra the entire egalitarian project of broadening the variety of acts & styles approached in their own terms I associate w ilx at its least toxic but “sorry for being rude about it”
― xheugy eddy (D-40), Friday, 21 June 2024 04:01 (one week ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0q3K6FPzY18
― ufo, Friday, 21 June 2024 04:15 (one week ago) link
Matt clearly established a context — as a pop performer Charli and her genuine interests seem entirely in control of her changes in s musical style and shifts in career approach. The principle of auteur theory is that Hitch can be determined to have recurring motifs, preoccupations and approaches across his oeuvre despite a changing array of writers and composers and gaffers and cameramen and board artists, not that he (or he and Alma) wrote, produced, boarded, shot, directed, lit, developed and edited every frame him/themself.
― bae (sic), Friday, 21 June 2024 04:23 (one week ago) link
not saying I would use the term myself, but deej you didn’t engage with / argue against the premise, you just rolled into the thread to piss on someone for expressing enthusiasm about the thread’s subject
― bae (sic), Friday, 21 June 2024 04:28 (one week ago) link
Idk if that’s directed at me but I said the auteur part is the one I agree with
― xheugy eddy (D-40), Friday, 21 June 2024 04:28 (one week ago) link
“ I can’t think of another genius level auteur operating in this genre/domain.”
I guess if you define genre/domain absurdly narrowly I agree, but idk, I don’t even think this is the best pop album released the day it came out personally (Tems). My opinion as far as that goes isn’t what’s important in this thread, I’m feeling defensive abt the notion that this project is in some rarified ‘genius level auteur’ air … I’m not even hating on this album tbh happy for the stans
― xheugy eddy (D-40), Friday, 21 June 2024 04:35 (one week ago) link
Sometimes it's fun to just post
― plax (ico), Friday, 21 June 2024 05:03 (one week ago) link
Well, I love Charli way too uncritically, and I said a dumb thing, but at least there was some interesting discussion. In conclusion, ilx rules.
― assert (matttkkkk), Friday, 21 June 2024 08:57 (one week ago) link
I have found it an interesting question to think about, but it’s also bound up with my fears that my (waves hands about in the air) general scepticism about hyperpop being a genuinely new thing is just about me growing old
― Tim F, Friday, 21 June 2024 10:44 (one week ago) link
I haven't heard the album but I can't stop playing "Apple". It's so good/dumb
― Chuck_Tatum, Friday, 21 June 2024 15:38 (one week ago) link
new fav on this is “sympathy is a knife”
on the whole i think i like the tracks where the vocals are more distorted/manipulated
seems possibly relevant that she references her husband by his first name multiple times? is there much precedent for that in pop music?
― flopson, Saturday, 22 June 2024 00:03 (one week ago) link
The Lorde remix reminds me of Human League, with the subject of the first verses responding.
― A So-Called Pulitzer price winner (President Keyes), Saturday, 22 June 2024 00:11 (one week ago) link
Does this feel closer to articulating a contemporary notion of INDIE SLEAZE than anything else. I can’t help but wonder if that’s part of the appeal (a void The Dare certainly couldnt do enough abt)
― xheugy eddy (D-40), Saturday, 22 June 2024 04:33 (one week ago) link
funny that you ask because the bonus track that the Dare produced is the first time I haven't hated something he's done
― Murgatroid, Saturday, 22 June 2024 04:37 (one week ago) link
Im putting that in a kind of dumbed down way but its closer to that kind of post electroclash dirtbaggy cobrasnake vibe to me than anyone else really trying it rn
― xheugy eddy (D-40), Saturday, 22 June 2024 04:41 (one week ago) link
Heh, thought this was interesting re: her relationship to auto-tune.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ1Io84s9cM
― Jordan s/t (Jordan), Tuesday, 25 June 2024 17:52 (six days ago) link
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/commentary-charli-xcx-pop-girl-moment-brat-lorde-1235045384/
I feel like I’ve been reading “this is her breakthrough album” for every album she has ever released.
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Wednesday, 26 June 2024 03:01 (five days ago) link
This could actually be it though
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Wednesday, 26 June 2024 03:11 (five days ago) link
It could potentially hang on for a third week in the Billboard top 10 which is...crazy
― monotony, Wednesday, 26 June 2024 03:39 (five days ago) link
Btw I was looking for her other albums and couldn’t find them by looking at their cover until I noticed she changed all her album covers in the same style as brat on spotify. That’s kind of funny.
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Wednesday, 26 June 2024 04:00 (five days ago) link
I think this probably is her breakthrough album, which I think reflects a whole bunch of shifts and alignments in the surrounding cultural context.
There's a full-fledged scene of post-hyperpop Pop music (this is an awkward framing but you probably know what I mean - actual pop singers who are drawing on hyperpop sonics and vibes while also presenting themselves at least notionally as being potential pop stars) that did not exist to the same extent even 2 years ago and which in particular is now the clearly dominant brand of queer-aligned pop - and Charli (perhaps ironically) benefits from the fact that none of Kim Petras or Slayyyter or Shygirl or Tove Lo or etc. are really convincing as Top Tier pop stars - the fact of there being so many followers supports the inference that Charli must be a leader. I feel like some of the investment in her right now is, like, people trying to work out which AI company they should buy shares in.
I find some of the "ahead of the curve" / "future-forward" narratives that constantly get trotted out (see the rolling stone feature above for example) kind of irritating, both because I'm not persuaded that the last ten years of people trying to make pop songs that sound like Alter Ego or Ewan Pearson tracks from the mid-00s really merits that description (though some of it sounds great, to be clear) and because there's a real Pascalian "if I keep saying it over and over again like a mantra, maybe I and others will start to believe it" desperation vibe to this framing. Like, if we don't all agree to accept that framing, why are we spending so much time listening to and talking about this stuff?
Seemingly the fact that this is just a really catchy and fun and danceable and memorable pop album is insufficient.
― Tim F, Wednesday, 26 June 2024 05:33 (five days ago) link
(before everyone jumps in with the fact checking, obviously all the above artists I mention were making music two years ago, but there's a much bigger primed-audience to receive Brat now than there was to receive something broadly equivalent like Kim's Slut Pop two years ago, though the people who were wandering around quoting Kim's "Treat Me Like A Slut" then probably comprise(d) the core nucleus of the much bigger group who are now wandering around declaring "I'm so Julia")
― Tim F, Wednesday, 26 June 2024 05:37 (five days ago) link
idk that most of those acts you list really have much to do with hyperpop or that it's the dominant brand of queer-aligned pop - just look at chappell roan. i also don't really think petras' slut pop is equivalent at all to brat, it was doing a different and ultimately much more niche thing (being absurdly vulgar to the point of being one-note)
i think it just helps a lot that this is really charli's first album to be playing to her strengths while having a proper promotional campaign behind it, and she's spent a long time building up a cult fanbase by being really good at what she does, while continuing to have a minor hit every now and then. if pop 2 had been released as a proper album with a full promotional campaign (presumably leading to "unlock it" being a minor hit) then she might have had this sort of breakthrough moment earlier, idk
― ufo, Wednesday, 26 June 2024 06:05 (five days ago) link
For what is worth several lines in the album are very explicit about her doubting her relevance and the anxieties of a pop career tip-toeing between “famous, but not quite”
Examples:
“Should I stop my birth control?’Cause my career feels so smallIn the existential scheme of it all”
“I used to never think about BillboardBut, now, I’ve started thinking againWondering ’bout whether I think I deserve commercial success”
“Guess I'm a mess and play the roleUsed to live just for the party, door is openI'm famous but not quiteBut I'm perfect for the backgroundOnе foot in a normal life”
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Wednesday, 26 June 2024 06:13 (five days ago) link
dominant != sole. I would of course not suggest that there is any one type (or even a small number of types) of pop music that can be described as "queer-aligned".
Also I definitely am not trying to defend either the quality or commercial prospects of Slut Pop. I would say that that release had an outsized impact on the same audience which appear broadly responsible for promoting "brat supremacy" online.
the genius entry on "Sympathy Is A Knife" (which I love) is pretty funny with respect to both the positioning of charli as an innovator and her insecurity vis a vis her status as a pop star:
"Charli is successful, but she’s not on the same level as Taylor, one of the most awarded and commercially successful musicians ever. Taylor’s exceptional status means no artist should feel bad they don’t have her numbers, and her music is more focused on mainstream appeal whereas Charli prides herself on avant-garde innovation, but insecurity is often irrational. As Charli says, she doesn’t know why she feels so strongly."
― Tim F, Wednesday, 26 June 2024 07:04 (five days ago) link
I dont think chappell roan is in the silo tim's describing at all, that's its own thing entirely
― xheugy eddy (D-40), Wednesday, 26 June 2024 18:10 (five days ago) link
Charli prides herself
Anyone going to San Antone?
― A So-Called Pulitzer price winner (President Keyes), Wednesday, 26 June 2024 19:16 (five days ago) link