New music from Charli XCX
The electropop star’s homemade album is changing the rules
MADE IN LOCKDOWN The British singer-songwriter (born Charlotte Aitchison) set herself the challenge of making an album during lockdown – and she did it. How I’m Feeling Now was written, recorded and released in six weeks from her home in Los Angeles.
“For me, staying positive goes hand in hand with being creative so that’s why I decided I was going to use this isolation time to make a brand-new album from scratch,” she told the BBC.
For Charli, whose hits include Fancy (with Iggy Azalea) and Boomclap, it’s a “very DIY project. I used the tools I had at my fingertips to create all the music, artwork, videos, everything”.
ROPING IN THE FANS The album was a massive collaborative effort that saw her reaching out to people online to help.
“I’ll be posting demos, a cappellas, text conversations with any collaborators. I’ll be filming myself in the studio. I’ll be doing Zoom conferences to ask fans or anyone watching for opinions or ideas. I’m going to set up an email address so that fans or anyone can send me beats or references,” she said in a video announcement in April.
“Part of me is like, I don’t know why I haven’t made an album like this before. It’s so fun and nice to work like this.”
ALL THE FEELS The album deals with the full spectrum of feelings Charli went through in lockdown, from frustration to sadness. She describes herself as “very volatile”. “When I’m high, I’m very high. I can be very cocky. But I think I’m more like that on the internet than in real life. I’m always working, I don’t take holidays. I’m on all the time. So when I take a moment to just reflect and pause, everything collapses. I probably hit a real low maybe three or four times a year.”
‘I’m gonna be around for a really long time, whether I have No 1s or not’