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
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
― J0rdan S., Sunday, 2 June 2013 20:33 (eleven years ago) link
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.
― J0rdan S., Sunday, 2 June 2013 20:39 (eleven years ago) link
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.
― Tim F, Sunday, 2 June 2013 21:01 (eleven years ago) link
well then that must be why i don't listen to a lot of tumblr-pop
― J0rdan S., Sunday, 2 June 2013 21:03 (eleven years ago) link
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.
― J0rdan S., Sunday, 2 June 2013 21:08 (eleven years ago) link
"Take My Hand" is by far my favorite of the singles. What a banger.
― A deeper shade of lol (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 2 June 2013 21:13 (eleven years ago) link
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.
― Tim F, Sunday, 2 June 2013 21:19 (eleven years ago) link
i just mean that it's not like the crash bonus tracks which were better than most of the album, for instance. they're not a step down either
― ufo, Monday, 10 June 2024 07:12 (one week ago) link
Aha nice, that electro-house-revival track with The Dare I posted a video too before is one of these tracks.
― Chewshabadoo, Monday, 10 June 2024 07:53 (one week ago) link
Yeah “Guess” has me flashing on the Ewan remix of “Perspex Sex” a bit
― Tim F, Monday, 10 June 2024 11:23 (one week ago) link
Don't get the reasoning for releasing a deluxe version of the album the same week as the regular version - or maybe i'm just too old
― licorice oratorio (baaderonixx), Monday, 10 June 2024 12:37 (one week ago) link
chart positioning
― the defenestration of prog (voodoo chili), Monday, 10 June 2024 12:48 (one week ago) link
speaking of, new Pitchfork article on the deluxe notes:
the album has already surpassed 2022’s Crash as Charli XCX’s biggest streaming debut on Spotify; Brat had 15.4 million streams on its release day, whereas Crash racked up 5.9 million.
nice!
only managed a couple of listens so far. love it.
― maf you one two (maffew12), Monday, 10 June 2024 13:09 (one week ago) link
Feel like this album really has social media zeitgeist effects behind it in a way previous albums didn’t - though I guess Crash was not so long ago that if it couldn’t have benefited from that kind of thing as well in the right circumstances.
I think my favourite part of the album is the cut-up vocal on the chorus for “365” when it sounds like she’s singing “when I’m in the club - no I’m not”. A position I would hard identify with if it was what she was actually singing (it’s not).
― Tim F, Monday, 10 June 2024 14:09 (one week ago) link
I think my favourite part of the album is the cut-up vocal on the chorus for “365”
yes! all those little elements really work great on this.
apropos of nothing, I also thought the 'work angles' lyric in 360 was something about cankles.
― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm), Tuesday, 11 June 2024 19:16 (six days ago) link
i haven't really loved much that she's done since pop 2 but this album is great. the production in places has that same sorta airiness to it, tempos that almost remind me of like 90s atl bass music. when she sings "you gon jump cuz AG made it" on "360" it maps almost perfectly over missy elliott shouting "jazze made it! on "1, 2 step" ... this album has some of that like walking on air quality that i love about i.e. early ciara. and then for me some of the more harder, dissonant PC music stuff plays well as contrast, and there's a lot of effective hard/soft interplay for me between the beats and melodies on those records that i don't normally appreciate as much. something like "mean girls" having those house pianos that burst thru halfway thru etc
i also like a lot of the spoken word bits. it feels like she got to a place emotionally w/ this record that is resonating w/ ppl. i don't think honesty is the right word... emotional clarity? idk. but stuff like "rewind" or "so i" that are based on subjects (fame, death) that so often lead to mawkish music feel really deftly done to me here. for what she does i think she kinda knocked this one out of the park, shoutout to her. super fun show last night too
― slob wizard (J0rdan S.), Wednesday, 12 June 2024 17:18 (five days 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 (five days ago) link
xxp Though i figured i must be wrong, i kept singing "wear Kangols"
― maf you one two (maffew12), Wednesday, 12 June 2024 23:06 (five days ago) link
me too.
― peace, man, Wednesday, 12 June 2024 23:15 (five days ago) link
(all the leaked unreleased material from the original version of her third album)
does the Focus/No Angel single line up with this time? I still play that all the time, and I need to give those bootlegs a proper listen (the "XCX World" stuff, right?)
― maf you one two (maffew12), Thursday, 13 June 2024 16:37 (four days ago) link
"no angel" and "girls night out" were definitely intended for the album but "focus" and "5 in the morning" were recorded a little later so i'm not sure if they were ever considered as part of that project. there's a lot of leaked material from 2016-2018 and it's not clear exactly how it all fits together - there was never a finalised tracklist or anything
― ufo, Thursday, 13 June 2024 23:08 (four days ago) link
dying at this post over in the old folks' home
https://i.imgur.com/U6sEUjz.png
― omar little, Friday, 14 June 2024 18:00 (three days ago) link
yikes
― ɥɯ ︵ (°□°) (mh), Friday, 14 June 2024 19:32 (three days ago) link
Voom Voom
― really looking forward to wearily scrolling past all your posts (Champiness), Friday, 14 June 2024 19:49 (three days ago) link
yes, famous 'back to basics rock and roll album Sucker by Charli XCX'
― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm), Sunday, 16 June 2024 00:18 (yesterday) link
― 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, 16 June 2024 05:24 (yesterday) link
gee sorry, I’ll try to enthuse in a more measured way
― assert (matttkkkk), Sunday, 16 June 2024 11:33 (yesterday) link
is she really a genius? serious question
― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 16 June 2024 11:36 (yesterday) link
Genius ear for a catchy hook and the nous to match that with interesting and at times avant-garde pop producers.
― Chewshabadoo, Sunday, 16 June 2024 14:19 (yesterday) link
I think True Romance was genius and everything afterwards has been various levels of good/OK. Oh, and "Dinosaur Sex" which seems to have disappeared from the internet
― Doctor Madame Frances Experimento, LLC", Sunday, 16 June 2024 15:58 (yesterday) link
dinosaur sex appears to be floating around slsk, thanks
― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm), Sunday, 16 June 2024 18:09 (yesterday) link