Charli xcx

Charli xcx moves fluidly between pop’s most avant-garde and commercial edges, equally at home collaborating with forward-thinking producers such as A.G. Cook and joining Taylor Swift on the road. In her dual role as songwriter and featured artist she shaped several landmark singles of the 2010s, among them Icona Pop’s 2012 smash “I Love It” and Iggy Azalea’s 2014 chart-topping hit “Fancy.” Her own recordings trace a path from the sharp-edged textures of the 2013 debut True Romance to the more direct pop of its 2014 successor Sucker, which included the U.S. Top Ten single “Boom Clap.” Throughout the rest of the decade her output grew steadily more abundant and wide-ranging. After establishing the Vroom Vroom imprint she released a series of EPs and mixtapes, among them 2017’s Pop 2, that wove her disparate impulses into an open-ended whole; she extended that approach on the 2022 album Crash, which revisited ’90s and 2000s pop motifs, and on 2024’s widely praised Brat, whose mix of indie-sleaze abandon and candid lyricism lifted her profile higher than ever before.

Born in Cambridge, England, to a Scottish father and a Gujarati Indian mother, Charlotte Aitchison began composing songs at age fourteen. By 2008 she was uploading material online and playing raves, adopting her MSN Messenger handle as a stage name. That same year she issued the singles “Emelline/Art Bitch” and “!Franchesckaar!,” and she pressed an early album that circulated only at live shows and never received an official release. She resurfaced in 2011 with the Ariel Rechtshaid-produced tracks “Stay Away” and “Nuclear Seasons,” contributed vocals to Starkey’s “Lost in Space” and Alex Metric’s “End of the World,” and put out the mixtapes Super Girls, Super Love, and I Like Boys Who Cry, each one gathering songs by the female or male artists who had shaped her sound.

Her first proper original mixtape, Heartbreaks and Earthquakes, appeared in May 2012, followed later that year by the U.S. debut EP You’re the One and the additional mixtape Super Ultra. She achieved her largest success to that point when she co-wrote and guested on Icona Pop’s single “I Love It,” which reached number seven on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped the U.K. singles chart. The debut album True Romance, released in April 2013 and featuring production from Rechtshaid, Joakim Åhlund, and Blood Diamonds, climbed to number eighty-five on the U.K. Albums chart, entered the Australian top twenty, and peaked at number five on Billboard’s Heatseekers chart.

Although True Romance drew strong reviews, Charli xcx immediately began work on a follow-up with an eclectic cast that included Weezer, Stargate, and Vampire Weekend’s Rostam Batmanglij, releasing the single “Superlove” in December. Her major breakthrough arrived in 2014 via the Iggy Azalea collaboration “Fancy,” which became the first number-one Hot 100 hit for both artists that May; she also co-wrote “Beg for It,” later included on Azalea’s Reclassified and featuring Danish singer/songwriter MØ. That same month she issued “Boom Clap,” a move toward a more accessible pop style that appeared on the soundtrack to the film adaptation of The Fault in Our Stars, reached the top ten in the U.S., U.K., and Australia, and marked her biggest solo success so far. The track anchored the pop-punk-leaning album Sucker, released that December and also spawning the singles “Break the Rules,” “Famous,” and “Doing It” with Rita Ora. Sucker entered the top thirty of the Billboard 200 and rose to number fifteen on the U.K. albums chart.

Throughout this period she continued writing for other acts, supplying tracks for Gwen Stefani and Rihanna in addition to the Iggy Azalea/MØ song “Beg for It.” In 2015 she appeared on Ty Dolla $ign’s “Drop That Kitty” alongside Tinashe and joined Mr. Oizo on the Hand in the Fire EP. Early in 2016 she inaugurated her own boutique label, Vroom Vroom, with a namesake EP that introduced Hannah Diamond and SOPHIE along with singles by RIVRS and Cuckoolander. Later that year PC Music’s A.G. Cook was appointed her creative director. October brought the single “After the Afterparty,” the first release tied to a planned third album; the track reached number twenty-nine on the U.K. Singles Chart and earned a silver certification from the BPI. She also contributed two songs, “Gravity” and “Tonight,” to Blondie’s Pollinator. In 2017 she released the Number 1 Angel mixtape, which featured MØ and CupcakKe, and guested on Mura Masa’s “1 Night.” Later that year leaks of material intended for the third album prompted her to scrap the project. A second mixtape, Pop 2, followed in December and included the single “Out of My Head” with Alma and Tove Lo.

In 2018 Charli xcx joined Rita Ora, Cardi B, and Bebe Rexha on the single “Girls,” then issued her own tracks “5 in the Morning,” “Focus,” and “Girls Night Out.” She served as an opening act on Taylor Swift’s Reputation Stadium Tour and closed the year with the Troye Sivan duet “1999,” a top-forty U.S. hit that also entered the top twenty in numerous other territories. The song appeared on her self-titled third album, which featured guest turns from Lizzo, Christine and the Queens, Sky Ferreira, and Yaeji as well as production from A.G. Cook, Easyfun, and Stargate. Simply titled Charli, the record arrived in September 2019, debuted at number fourteen on the U.K. charts, and placed inside the top fifty of the Billboard 200. She also contributed “Dream Glow” with BTS members Jin, Jimin, and Jungkook to the soundtrack of the group’s mobile game BTS World.

Early in 2020 she worked with Galantis and 100 gecs while developing material for her next project, yet the onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting shelter-in-place orders that began in March prompted a shift in direction. Using social-media live streams to converse with artists such as Orville Peck and Rina Sawayama, she invited fan feedback to shape a new set of songs completed in quarantine. With production input from Cook, BJ Burton, 100 gecs’ Dylan Brady, and others, how i'm feeling now emerged in May 2020 and captured the spontaneous spirit of her earlier mixtapes; it reached number thirty-three in the U.K. and earned a Mercury Prize shortlist nomination.

In 2021 she teamed with No Rome and the 1975 on “Spinning” before issuing the standalone single “Good Ones.” For her fifth album, March 2022’s Crash, she refreshed dance-pop from the ’80s, ’90s, and 2000s with assistance from A.G. Cook, Caroline Polachek, Christine and the Queens, and Oneohtrix Point Never. The set became her most commercially successful release to date, topping charts in the U.K. and Australia, reaching number seven in the U.S., and again appearing on the Mercury Prize shortlist. Shortly afterward she joined Tiësto for the single “Hot in It.” She next focused on film music, contributing “Hot Girl” to 2022’s Bodies Bodies Bodies and, with Pop 2 producer Easyfun, “Speed Drive” to the soundtrack of 2023’s Barbie; the latter reached number nine in the U.K. and number seventy-three in the U.S., her first U.S. chart entry since 2014. She also composed the score for 2023’s Bottoms with co-composer Leo Birenberg. The year closed with a feature on Addison Rae’s “2 Die 4” and a Top Forty U.K. collaboration with Sam Smith titled “In the City.”

At the start of 2024 she performed at Brooklyn’s Boiler Room with a band that included Cook and the 1975’s George Daniel, setting the stage for the February single “Von Dutch,” a bold dance-floor track that anchored the June album Brat. The record paired lean, unadorned productions from Cook, Easyfun, Gesaffelstein, and xcx herself with some of her most direct songwriting yet. It entered at number two in the U.K. and number three in the U.S., delivering her strongest first-week sales in both markets. The album’s stark artwork—plain black text on a neon-green field—spread rapidly online and was adopted for campaigns by the Green Party of England and Wales and by U.S. presidential candidate Kamala Harris. A deluxe edition, Brat and It’s the Same but There’s Three More Songs So It’s Not, followed soon after and featured the Billie Eilish collaboration “Guess” among its additions. A remix of “Guess” topped the U.K. Singles Chart, marking xcx’s first appearance there since 2012’s “I Love It.” Brat received a Mercury Prize nomination that July, and in October the remix album brat and it’s completely different but also still brat arrived while she toured with Troye Sivan; its roster of guests encompassed Sivan, Eilish, Polachek, Cook, Ariana Grande, Robyn, Lorde, the Strokes’ Julian Casablancas, and Bon Iver.