Charli XCX

do feel like diane martell directed video is probably her last gasp as a quasi big budget pop star unless she somehow runs into another big single

hmm so i just listened. it is not *terrible* but certainly not up to par with her albums. a couple tracks are sorta charming, mostly shoved toward the front of the tracklisting.

I'm not too sure why it's embarrassing that her aesthetic has changed with each album. Isn't that quite a common trait in pop stars?

"Roll With Me" sounds like Britney in a sex club. It's probably my favourite! That or "Lipgloss".

i only listened to the cupcakke verse but i like her now

doesn't "sounds like Britney in a sex club" = "sounds like Britney"

(I haven't heard this yet, I'm kind of avoiding it and reassuring myself that even on album one she was working with Brooke Candy and (sigh) J£ZUS MILLION)

I'm not too sure why it's embarrassing that her aesthetic has changed with each album. Isn't that quite a common trait in pop stars?

because it seems to come as a result of the previous aesthetic not working rather than being fully explored, and at the expense of her having a really distinctive voice. i mean what is charli xcx's "thing" at this point rather than jobbing industry songwriter throwing stuff at the wall in the hope something will stick?

True Romance and Sucker were both great albums where she aesthetic did work though. It doesn't feel like she gave up on them because they were failed experiments, it just seems like she doesn't like to repeat herself and she maybe has a short attention span. The Vroom Vroom EP is the only time she really got it wrong for me. The material just wasn't good enough. This mixtape is her back on track that makes me feel a lot more hopeful about the third album than I did at any time last year. I think Charli's thing is just being an incredible songwriter.

as someone who pre-Sucker would have considered her a favourite and has been cautiously supportive since, I have to say this is not going well at all for me. The abundance of guest singers accentuates the lack of personality on this release and it feels a bit like someone's prospective CV for being a popstar. That said, all of this is far better than Vroom Vroom and After The Afterparty which are both simply unacceptable.

it's more that she gave up on them because they were commercial failures (speaking as someone who loves True Romance and quite likes most of Sucker)

I don't think it was ever really likely they would be successful though, at least in a major-league way. They're both pop albums but they feel slightly out of step with the pop climates they were delivered into. I don't actually believe she's a hack, chasing success - I imagine it would actually be a lot easier for her to do that than to pursue her own artist divergences and hope the world bends to her will.

I feel like it's her record company that still have some hope of her becoming this massive pop star (based on I Love It, Fancy and Boom Clap). I think Charli is probably happy with the level she's at commercially. She's obviously really prolific and just wants to get the music out there. In that interview I posted about this mixtape, she didn't exactly hide her frustration about the label sitting on the album for so long. It really does come across that she gets bored very easily. I could see her leaving her label and going it alone by the end of the year.

robyn's mid-level, mainstream success worked for her because she was fully independent and not splitting her profits from touring or record sales with a major label

that model is not viable for artists on major labels

there are not major label pop artists who wake up in the morning and think "i don't really care if i can be huge on the radio or not, as long as my modestly-selling albums reach a core fanbase of sophisticated pop aficionados"

it's go big or go home

"roll with me" is basically a robyn song (which explains lex not liking it)

Out here acting like this industry prop actually writes or makes any of the music she puts out. I got nothing against that but why are we now fooling ourselves pretending she's something shes not?

uhh what? it should be pretty clear that she writes her music (+ the songs she's done for others), maybe it's you who ought to be thinking about what could be "fooling" you i.e. pervasive culturally-sanctioned assumptions typically made about young women in creative industries

nice trolling orientmammal

Racoonlike

"uhh what? it should be pretty clear that she writes her music (+ the songs she's done for others), maybe it's you who ought to be thinking about what could be "fooling" you i.e. pervasive culturally-sanctioned assumptions typically made about young women in creative industries

― dyl, "

http://i.imgur.com/BihLufY.png

http://i.imgur.com/DBDWqcd.png

This is a strange argument you are pursuing, as a simple look at her wiki page shows she is a passenger of dozens of creators who are creating her music, without which, she would not have a product to sell. Yes, her name is included, for some sense of artistic authenticity on the part of the label to fool apparently people like yourself who don't see the other 20 and at times half dozen people on one song.

Also, a strange (projection?) thing to blame it on her happening to be a woman, I'm not sure what that has to do with anything, but I guess it's what you've been taught to say but it only diverts the debate into the abyss.

*sigh* this shit again, here we go

Charli XCX is a topline writer, someone like Ariel Rechtshaid (for instance) is a producer. This can be confirmed by reading any number of interviews with her or with her collaborators, or having a passing knowledge about how pop music is written

as far as "(blaming) it on her happening to be a woman," topline writers tend to be women and producers tend to be male, and there is a consistent pattern of downplaying the former work in favor of the latter.

lol katherine just wrote a way better version of the post i was sitting here composing

also if you're going to post wikipedia screenshots it's a good idea to clear your history and cache, so you don't put on display what you didn't bother to click through

Charli XCX has also been releasing pop music since she was 14, well before she was in contact with Ariel Rechtshaid or any major label

god this idiot assuming i'm trying to defend charli xcx without knowing how songs are written in today's pop industry. (bless you katherine for having the patience to explain the details, and so succinctly.)

lol i forgot raccoon tanuki was also making fun of the "charlie xcx fans" here before he was booted

one of my favorite charli xcx songs is still "valentine", which she chucked out on the internet on valentine's day 2012 or something like that. i think it was supposed to be something she had written ages before? not sure tho.

one of my favorite charli xcx songs is still "valentine"

Wow, "Valentine" is great, thanks for the heads up. Just reaffirms I like her earlier stuff a bit better than what she's been releasing lately. Sucker is such a killer album, nearly perfect front-to-back. "Art Bitch," released when she was like 16 or something, is probably still my favorite of hers.

You're so right her songwriting is so good she only needs like at least two random label people to write it with her and someone else to write the music for it.

fp

yeah, and I'm a shitty singer because I need someone to conduct, someone to play the piano and someone to turn the pages

(I am in fact a shitty singer but regardless of that)

well, HOWEVER that may be i'd still rather hear the shitty singer sing than to read the orientalracoon's thoughts on modern pop music.

also, sorry to manthread but the reason people keep pointing out sexism is that you never -- literally, I have never seen this* -- hear producers' writing skills get questioned because they only write the backing tracks. (it's not like the toplines get written in a vacuum, that would be quite difficult to do -- usually the demo has some kind of standard piano and/or guitar accompaniment, those "5 p.m. stripped-down such musicality wow" versions of pop tracks you see are often pretty close to their original form)

* if it happens at all I would guess it would be more in rap than pop writing, but the dynamics between rappers and beatmakers aren't exactly parallel

What point are you making re: her songwriting ability? Please name some great writers of history who have needed at least several people to write their all their songs for them? My point is there's no indication she writes anything, as every song she has ever put out has multiple random people in the writing credits as far as I can tell.

There's literally loads of female singer songwriters through time who no one has EVER questioned them, because they simply DO write their own music and lyrics. (Bjork, Tori Amos, Joni, Nina, Dolly, Bush, Joplin, Tracy Chapman, Stevie nicks etc). There's no of this imaginary sexism with female acts who actually do write their music. My point is obviously, why are you pretending someone who doesn't - does??

I'v eliterally never heard anybody question the artistic integrity of Kate Bush or Tracy Chapman. Never. Doesn't happen. The idea that it does is a ludicrous fantasy world.

I've literally never heard of anyone get upset about the writing credits on Charli XCX's songs. Never. Doesn't happen. The idea that it does is a ludicrous fantasy world.

SHE'S A PHONY, A BIG FAT PHONY

ppl were literally questioning the artistic integrity of stevie nicks (whose songs occasionally have cowriting credits) in a fleetwood mac thread two weeks ago

Looks as if the problem could be that women under 50 have no talent. Reading between the lines.

bjork often collaborates with producers

idk why i'm typing this out instead of flagposting this person more

it's not like bjork did a huge-ass interview with pitchfork about having her songwriting and production questioned

Pitchfork: When it was originally misreported that Vulnicura was produced by Arca, instead of co-produced by you and Arca, it reminded me of the Joni Mitchell quote from the height of her fame about how whichever man was in the room with her got credit for her genius.

B: Yeah, I didn’t want to talk about that kind of thing for 10 years, but then I thought, “You’re a coward if you don’t stand up. Not for you, but for women. Say something.” So around 2006, I put something on my website where I cleared something up, because it’d been online so many times that it was becoming a fact. It wasn’t just one journalist getting it wrong, everybody was getting it wrong. I’ve done music for, what, 30 years? I’ve been in the studio since I was 11; Alejandro had never done an album when I worked with him. He wanted to put something on his own Twitter, just to say it’s co-produced. I said, “No, we’re never going to win this battle. Let’s just leave it.” But he insisted. I’ve sometimes thought about releasing a map of all my albums and just making it clear who did what. But it always comes across as so defensive that, like, it’s pathetic. I could obviously talk about this for a long time.

Pitchfork: The world has a difficult time with the female auteur.

B: I have nothing against Kanye West. Help me with this—I’m not dissing him—this is about how people talk about him. With the last album he did, he got all the best beatmakers on the planet at the time to make beats for him. A lot of the time, he wasn’t even there. Yet no one would question his authorship for a second. If whatever I’m saying to you now helps women, I’m up for saying it. For example, I did 80% of the beats on Vespertine and it took me three years to work on that album, because it was all microbeats—it was like doing a huge embroidery piece. Matmos came in the last two weeks and added percussion on top of the songs, but they didn’t do any of the main parts, and they are credited everywhere as having done the whole album. (Matmos’) Drew (Daniel) is a close friend of mine, and in every single interview he did, he corrected it. And they don’t even listen to him. It really is strange.

"Oh, I know she's still front cover type material (less sincere chaps might say only through the size of her buttocks and mammaries, but I won't) and I know 'Never For Ever' will once again be clung to a nation's collective bosoms, but really the formula does grate so that I'd stop somewhat short of describing the girl as a brave new force in the world of popular music." -- a line from a Kate Bush review in, I think it was, the '80s;

earlier, coverage in the '70s tended to indulge said "less sincere chaps" or lean on David Gilmour as the source of her success. but don't take it from me: http://gaffa.org/reaching/ro_int.html

xpost Ahhhhh I love that interview so much. So relentlessly on point.

As for Charli XCX, I only listened to the snippets on iTunes b/c lol who has time at this point, but it struck me as a partial reversion to the approach of the Super Ultra mixtape, which actually was probably my main Charli release all things considered.

"The former LA 'rock chick' has been reinvented as an introspective singer/songwriter in the great tradition of Joni Mitchell or Suzanne Vega. A corporate makeover by a major label? Probably." -- the beginning of a Tori Amos feature circa _Little Earthquakes_ in NME

tsk, you can prove anything with facts

There's definitely a persistent theme of a drawbridge mentality - all right, we'll allow these (venerable) women in, but any of you new ones outside the gates are automatically suspect.

It's a shame that no one has ever come up with any concepts with which to describe this binary approach to assessing women's worth.

i'd be curious to know if bono could write a song without the edge *and* adam *and* larry *and* eno and god knows who else, damn there are so many people in that machine, but for some reason no one ever asks about that.

I'm just quoting these in response to the hilarious bullshit that is "no one has EVER questioned these singer-songwriters"

obviously -- although the very existence of this tangent suggests maybe it isn't as obviously as it should be -- pop songwriting works differently than solo, probably folky singer-songwriter stuff, but that's how the industry works, just like how publishing houses employ (for some values of "employ," but that's just me complaining) editors and copy editors and proofreaders, ad companies have multiple copywriters...