Few musicians seem to understand the present quite like Charli XCX. Despite being known for featuring on that one Iggy Azalea song, or that song from The Fault in Our Stars, Charli has managed to cultivate a sound that culture writer Adam White describes as futuristic over the course of her decade-long career. Yet few artists have managed to capture the dark, dystopian sense of reality that comes along with being a young person in the 21st century. Her finger is very much on the pulse of popular culture, with her music acting as a response to uncertainty.
This could not be more true of her most recent studio album how i’m feeling now, released this year in May. Created over a 6-week period at the height of COVID-19 restrictions, Charli produced the album in her home, providing fans with weekly check-ins on her youtube channel. In my opinion, the album is one of the few that has managed to express the anxiety, intensity, volatility and uncertainty of life in lockdown without explicitly using language related to COVID. It’s an odyssey into the brain of someone being tormented by self-isolation. The album is an exploration of what it’s like to be on the inside of a time loop, stuck in unbreakable patterns of experiencing hope and despair.
When the album dropped, I wasn’t immediately attached to it as I had been with much of her previous work. The last thing I wanted to listen to was an album centered around being stuck inside all day. I wanted an escape, which albums like Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia and Rina Sawayama’s SAWAYAMA had been able to provide me with. As the summer wore on and things continued to look bleak for the remainder of the year, I turned back to the album and gave it the attention it deserved. After all, maybe this album could speak to my own feelings of dissatisfaction and restlessness, which is exactly what it did.
The album opens with the blistering and punchy pink diamond. Charli’s fittingly monotonous voice spews out lyrics like, “I just wanna go real hard for days / I just wanna feel in different ways / Every single night kinda feels the same / I’m a pink diamond, I need space” and “In real life, could the club even handle us?”. It’s an exciting start to the album but is undercut by a current of rage bubbling up with each glitchy sound. Her deadpan singing juxtaposes the lyrics that indicate instability and moodiness. Everything is the same, nothing changes, the desire to escape — what’s more 2020 than those thoughts? It sets the tone to say the least.
Each song following the opener takes on a new approach to separation. In the first single off of the album, forever, the lyrics tackle not knowing when you’re going to see your loved ones next. The music video features clips sent in from fans of them hanging out with their loved ones before COVID began, while she sings over a sugary, glittering beat: “I know in the future / We won’t see each other / Cold just like December / But I will always love you”. With the designated album banger claws, she addresses her affection for her lover, crooning that she doesn’t want to be alone in-between announcing that she loves “everything” about him repeatedly. The beat breaks down at the end, glitching over her voice screaming out the word “everything”, as if she’s unsure of her own convictions. Does she really love him or does she love the company he provides her with? In c2.0, a variation of the 2019 song ‘Click’ off of her previous studio album, is an ode to friendship. “Phone calls every night had a new glow / My clique running through my mind like a rainbow / We were so in love, so we let go /Took it in our lungs, then we all choked”. For me it is the saddest song on the album, as the lyrics speak to the nostalgia associated with past moments of fun and freedom while emphasizing the danger associated with being physically close in the present.
Uncertainty in romantic relationships is a running theme for enemy, detonate, and my personal favourite party 4 u, where Charli describes only throwing a party in the hopes that one particular person will be in attendance. These songs are universal in the feelings of longing and desire to connect that they depict, but are especially relevant in 2020 when long distance relationships are strained further than before and loneliness runs rampant.
A true self-isolation bop, anthems chronicles the feelings many of us have experienced at some point since March. Charli opens the song with “I’m so bored, woo”, relaying how she fills her days at home: “Wake up late and eat some cereal / Try my best to be physical / Lose myself in a TV show / Staring out to oblivion”. Similar in theme to c2.0, the song encompasses the feelings of just wanting to hang out and be free with friends. Charli sings overtop of another happy, glitched-out beat, recalling the same mundane activities many people go through in lockdown, whining (relatably) about everything she’s missing out on: “I want anthems / Late nights, my friends, New York”.
The album closer visions is a danceable, dystopian piece of cyber pop. Charli reflects on the past as if looking back on everything that is happening in the world now from a very distant future: “Visions comin’ every night / You can call me so crazy, following that light / I see you and I”. As the song progresses, the beat builds up to an incredible climax that would make even the biggest homebody nostalgic for a packed dance floor. The song continues on, breaking down beat by beat until it evolves into a repeated alarm sounding off, signalling the bitter end. Charli’s take on the future is simultaneously melancholic and terrifying — will the future become so bleak that all we’ll be left with is ourselves and the memories of the ones we love playing on repeat in our heads, physical face-to-face contact a thing of the past? Maybe a bit of a dramatic take, but nothing feels guaranteed these days.
Regardless of your feelings on this pandemic, Charli XCX is making music that reflects the current state of the world in a way that positions her as a voice of the present, especially to those of us in Gen Z. Charli is the queen of the self-isolation party anthem. We could all do with a little bit of imagination right now, so put on the album and pretend like you’re out with your friends – dancing in some packed rave, pink and purple lights flashing, glitter raining everywhere. Those are the visions that are helping me get through the mundane of 2020.
Check out how i’m feeling now here.