Charli XCX thinks she would have had a "breakdown" without her new album.
The 27-year-old singer has spent her time in lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic writing and recording ‘How I’m Feeling Now’ and explained how she’d always planned to make a record this year while "shut off" from the world so she took advantage of having the time alone to be "creative" and it provided a welcome distraction to her.
She said on Billboard’s ‘Pop Shop’ podcast: I wanted to do an album at the end of the year… we wanted to do something in like, you know, a month, two months.
"Like, going to one place, like really shutting off the world and focusing in on just making music. Very quickly and fluidly and putting it out quite soon after we’d completed it.
"And so the idea to do something like that was already there, so I just thought, once the lockdown begun, and I was in that position anyway… ‘Why don’t I just do that now?’ Because this time feels very fruitful for me as a creative.
"You know, I enjoy not being able to be distracted. I enjoy being in one place. I enjoy being shut off from the world, really.
"So, it felt like a very ripe time for me to write something. And also very in my nature to sort of document exactly what I’m going through…
"And also, I would have had a breakdown had I not been occupied."
The ‘Boom Clap’ hitmaker is enjoying the new wave of "joyous" disco-influenced pop music from the likes of Dua Lipa, Doja Cat, and Lady Gaga.
She said: "You know what, I never know. … I feel like everything was so hip-hop infused for so long that maybe it’s kind of fun for (pop) to just be about it being so sugary and pop, and happy.
"That Doja Cat song makes me feel so happy. And same with the Dua song. It makes me want to dance and it feels like I’m in a rom-com movie, you know? I think that’s really joyous and cool, because I feel like there was a lot of darkness in pop for quite a long time.
"Same with ‘Stupid Love,’ that song is so joyful."