Charli XCX hits keep on coming
British singer-songwriter Charlotte Aitchison, who records under the name Charli XCX, first became famous when “I Love It,” a song she co-wrote and sang on, became a 2012 hit for Icona Pop.
The hits kept coming, for other artists (like “Fancy,” for Iggy Azalea, and “Same Old Love,” for Selena Gomez) and, eventually, for Aitchison, beginning with “Boom Clap,” from the soundtrack to “The Fault in Our Stars.”
There aren’t many rules to hit songwriting, according to Aitchison, except work hard and try not to get ahead of yourself. “The second you start bouncing around the room like, ‘This is a hit!’ it probably isn’t,” Aitchison says on the phone from the road.
In March, Aitchison released the mixtape “Number 1 Angel,” a project that her label was surprised, and not necessarily thrilled, to hear about. Aitchison, who wrote “I Love It” when she was still a teenager, has long struggled to balance her love of uncommercial, experimental pop with her job as a mainstream hit-maker.
The following is an edited transcript of our conversation:
A: I still feel connected to the song, of course, but as soon as someone else sings it, it takes on a whole different meaning they can apply to their own life. Especially if someone’s had a very public private life, it’s hard to feel like that song is about you anymore if they’re singing it, but I think that’s really cool. Some of the best artists are the ones who can take songs and transform them into their own story. I think that’s really powerful.
A: No, I’m pretty happy with all my decisions on that front. I feel like “Same Old Love,” the song I wrote for Selena Gomez, I felt close to that song. That’s one of the ones where I felt the most like, the second she sang it, it meant so much more. I’m so happy she did it.
A: Yeah, they weren’t really involved in that so much. That was me and some of my favorite producers doing that, and I just put it out, and they were involved in the final stages of the process. For me, that mixtape was also an album, I just called it a mixtape so it was easier to release. It wasn’t less important or anything like that,
A: I don’t know if that’s good or bad or whatever. I just evolved a lot. I feel like, for me, the one recurring thing is I’m struggling to make interesting pop music. I’m always trying to be on what’s the next thing, rather than working with producers who currently sit atop the Hot 100. I just do what I feel. I think maybe that’s my downfall, as well as my specialty. Nov. 26 birthdays: Comedian Rich Little is 79. Singer Tina Turner is 78. Bassist John McVie of Fleetwood Mac is 72. Actor Peter Facinelli is 44. Singer Natasha Bedingfield is 36. Singer Rita Ora is 27.