Charli XCX
When: 2nd December 2024
Location: OVO Hydro
Charli XCX is a pop icon, an iconoclast, but most importantly an ally. Coming to Glasgow’s OVO Hydro on 2nd December 2024.
Few artists infiltrate the mainstream and brazenly fuse popular music with underground sensibilities like Charli XCX does. But that’s precisely why the UK star is adored on both sides of the spectrum. Consistently balancing chart success with integrity and indie appeal.
Born in Cambridge, England on 2nd August 1992 and raised in Bishop’s Stortford. Charlotte Emma Aitchison began writing her own music at the age of fourteen. Emboldened with such self-belief about her songs that she convinced her parents to lend her the necessary funds to record them. With no formal musical education, the budding artist wasn’t confined by tradition. A characteristic which would define much of her future career in music.
MySpace was the gateway to Charli XCX’s music being heard. The rave scene inspired her 2008 debut single ‘!Franchesckaar!’ and double A-side ‘Emelline/Art Bitch’. Her debut gig at a warehouse in London district Hackney Wick would leave a lasting imprint on her artistry. “I’d never been to a party like this before. I didn’t know anything about rave culture, or club-kid culture, or gay culture. Everything was a first that night,” she recalled.
Signed in 2010
Shortly after, she was noticed by Asylum Records who signed Charli in 2010. Releasing critically acclaimed singles ‘Stay Away’ and ‘Nuclear Seasons’, free mixtapes, and her debut EP, You’re The One, in 2012. One of her songs which she gifted to Swedish duo Icona Pop, ‘I Love It’, would go on to dominate global charts that very year. As well as serve as a breakthrough of sorts for Charli too. As much for her songwriting prowess as her distinct visual aesthetic.
Pressured into replicating the song’s success for her 2013 album, True Romance, Charli insisted on producing music her own way despite the new degree of exposure. Discouraged by major label demands. She found a kindred spirit in Marina & The Diamonds who collaborated on 2013 single ‘Just Desserts’. Her next collaboration would see Charli go stratospheric however. Eclipsing ‘I Love It’ with ‘Fancy’, her co-write and feature on Iggy Azalea’s global hit ahead of her 2014 sophomore album, Sucker.
After stints writing for Britney Spears, Rita Ora, Rihanna, Gwen Stefani and Sky Ferreira, Charli reverted to her underground safespace. Enlisting dear friend SOPHIE to help produce her third studio album in 2016. The album was sadly scrapped after it was leaked however.
Charli’s fierce commitment to creativity was unwavering though – to bypass record label red-tape, she released two “mixtapes” Number 1 Angel and Pop 2, but eschewed a third in favour of making her 2019 album, Charli. The critically acclaimed album featured guest spots from Troye Sivan on hit single ‘1999’, Christine and the Queens and Lizzo on ‘Blame It On Your Love’, Haim on ‘Warm’, with both Clairo and Yaeji featuring on ‘February 2017’.
First BRIT nomination
That year Charli XCX achieved her first BRIT nomination and announced an extensive global tour to coincide. She was garnering mainstream adoration on her own terms. Even Netflix utilised her relentless workrate when she formed alt-pop band Nasty Cherry for 2019 TV series I’m With The Band.
When the pandemic puts the brakes on for many, a vulnerable Charli sought connection and communication with her fans. Her emotionally raw 2020 album how I’m feeling now was created from scratch within five weeks with back-and-forth feedback from her fanbase.
Led by the buoyant, bedazzling single ‘Good Ones’, Charli’s 2022 album Crash – perhaps ironically – proved to be her most commercially successful full-length release to date. Dubbing it her “major label sell-out” record, Crash was Charli’s final release on Asylum Records, and saw her confront the trappings of fame and satirising a pop star’s role in the music industry, distancing herself from the experimental, hyperpop production of her earlier work. Though long-time collaborator A.G. Cook still had a hand in the album’s creation.
Free from the shackles of major label confines, Charli returned in 2024 – after an epic Boiler Room session – with Brat. “Lyrically, this is quite a different record for me,” she revealed. “It has fuelled this fun, gossipy narrative which permeates the album.”
