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Enter planet XCX“It’s Charli, baby”

In our first COVER STORY, we go on a journey of evolution with singer and songwriter, Charli XCX. From her ever-changing style, ‘getting ready’ rituals and newly released track “Speed Drive” for the Barbie movie, read the full interview for more.

12 September 2023 · 5 min read

Things have been quiet on the Charli XCX news front since the release of her Barbie soundtrack banger, “Speed Drive.”

“I’m in the hibernation era,” she says when we sit down to talk about where she’s currently at, although her version of hibernation doesn’t sound entirely like ours. “I make music, party, go out lots, make mistakes and think. I meet new people, go to dinners with random people I don’t know well and stay out until 5 am and make chaos.”

Perhaps it would be more fitting to call this Charli XCX’s freedom era, and good for her, quite frankly. The release of her fifth studio album Crash last year marked the end of an Atlantic Records deal the British artist has been locked into since she was 16 years old.

“Periods of craziness spark inspiration for me...”

- Charli XCX

Not that being locked into a five-album deal ever stopped Charli — born Charlotte Aitchison — from being herself. Unlike so many artists that buckle under corporate pressure and industry demand for a certain sound, Aitchison has always lived her truth and made music that speaks to her mood in the moment. Every album she has released since her debut True Romance dropped back in 2013 has pendulumed between genres and feels, swinging from moody and synthy to hyper-saturated and futuristic; from sexy and party to reflective and insular to explosive and self-destructive. It all speaks, to borrow from one of her album titles, to how she’s feeling now.

A woman with long, wavy hair stands in an indoor space, wearing a blue top and shiny silver pants, amidst stacked chairs and draped curtains.

Unless, it turns out, that feeling is fury. “I need to be in a good mood or a calm state of mind to make music. In a moment of anger or frustration, I can’t really create. I can harness a feeling of anger later down the line but I can’t create while I’m actively angry, I just get too annoyed with myself. I like being in an expensive studio to make music, a place where I can do what I want and people can run around after me. Or I just like being at my friends’ house, laying on the floor writing in a notebook. Real cliché teenage stuff I suppose.” Also, she adds, “periods of craziness spark inspiration for me more than periods of quiet. Doing exciting things, being in exciting places, being with wild people. Observing and partaking. I need to experience to write.”

Observing and experiencing new people inspires Aitchison’s approach to her style, too, which fans will know has changed as much as her music over the years, shifting from grungy plaid skirts and ripped tights to tulle prom dresses, taffeta tracksuits, metallic bikinis and lacy lingerie. The way she dresses tends to be influenced by the people she meets and the moments they share. “I might meet a girl with great style and write a song lyric about her but then also be like — ‘oh, I liked how she wore that thing that certain way.’ I might take it, I might steal here and there. Who cares. We all do it, sort of.”

She’s right of course, which is why we’re asking her about style in the first place. Imitation, flattery, etc. And moving in bold, creative crowds also helps. “I love house parties,” she says when we sidebar the conversation to ask where she likes to party. “Jordan Firstman throws some of my favourite house parties. I throw good house parties, too.” Obviously.

And what’s her getting ready ritual? “I don’t really do makeup. I’m not good at it, so I don’t spend much time doing that. I just try things on, clothes everywhere, that kind of thing. I always ask my boyfriend (The 1975 drummer George Daniel) what he thinks of my outfit, not because I’m a princess but because he has great taste.” And vitally, “I like having a drink while I get ready.”

Beyond great taste and personal style, Aitchison has come a hell of a long way since her childhood days in Essex. At 14 years old, she secured a loan from her parents to record her (unreleased) debut album and then began to perform in raves around the South after tracks she posted on Myspace began to gain recognition. “I’m not sure how I’ve evolved but I know I have. Artists evolve every day but I feel like it’s not always evolving forwards. It’s sometimes one step forward and two steps back. Some days I feel unbelievably confident and certain; I feel I could crush all other musicians with my brain power and talent. But then other days I feel totally tiny and irrelevant. That’s the plight of an artist. You are never just ‘okay’ and balanced. You are a walking contradiction.”

“I might meet a girl with great style and write a song lyric about her but then also be like, ‘oh, I liked how she wore that thing that certain way.’”

- Charli XCX

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A person with long, wavy black hair stands on a sofa in a messy room with dirt on the floor and peeling walls. Curtains hang in the background.

Knowing what to do with mainstream success once you have it and how you measure it is another “plight” she talks of. “The chase for success is essentially a death trap,” she says matter-of-factly. “Success cannot be defined by one description. If you suddenly become commercially successful perhaps you’ll suddenly become dissatisfied about lacking a true deep level of cultural influence at an underground level. But if you become critically acclaimed maybe you’ll suddenly put all your worth into being commercially successful. It’s a never-ending battle.”

What’s her approach to that fight? “I try to not care about anything. I try just to make what I find exciting, even if no one else likes it.” That strategy is a simple one but as we all know, it’s incredibly hard not to get lost in the opinions, or the expected reactions, of others when it comes to creating art. But those that manage to leapfrog that clout-chasing mind-spiral are the ones that move the culture forward. When asked which artists have a similar approach, Aitchison lists: “Doja Cat, Honey Dijon, Yung Lean, The 1975, the photographer Yelena Yemchuk, and filmmaker Ninja Thyberg. They are creatively fearless in a time where there is so much fear.”

It’s that fearlessness that Aitchison finds inspiring when it comes to creating. It makes total sense then that she has absolutely no interest in following fashion trends. “I’m in my most minimalist phase,” she concludes. “Simple pieces, timeless, lots of black. I like re-wearing things. I like packing light” — an approach we can totally get on board with. Although we’ll have to be patient to see where this new mood will take her. When we asked which Charli XCX era is coming next, all we got was: “It’s a secret, sorry. I’m not telling you.”

“Simple pieces, timeless, lots of black. I like re-wearing things.”

- Charli XCX