Charli XCX admits the success of her last two albums is “quite stressful” because she has to top them.
The ‘Hot In It’ star earned a Mercury Prize nomination for her 2020 pandemic record ‘How I’m Feeling Now’, while this year’s ‘Crash’ is her most commercially successful record to date, having topped the charts in the UK, Australia and Ireland and earned Charli her first top 10 in the US and Australia.
‘Crash’ was her final record on major label Atlantic Records, and now the ‘Used To Know Me’ singer is feeling the pressure to continue the trajectory she is on.
She said: “It’s still a shock to me – and it’s quite stressful because I’m like, ‘Oh c***, what do I do now?
“I feel like the narrative around my work has often been, ‘She’s one step ahead’ or, ‘She’s pushing the boundaries and no one ever quite gets her.’”
She added to the BBC: “So to achieve these things feels really special and unique, and it’s something I feel like I’ve achieved with my fans.
“But at the same time, what does it mean for me?”
Upon the release of ‘Crash’, Charli declared that the music industry is finally “beginning to catch up” with her “a little bit”.
The 30-year-old pop star finally feels her future-leaning music is a “tangible genre” – not just loved by the “weird kids”.
Speaking to Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1, she said: “I’m on my fifth album in my five-album deal. I’ve arrived at this place where I’m incorporating all of the different things that I’ve done in the past into one body of work.
“I also feel like — and this might sound like a negative but I actually think it’s a positive — I also feel like we’re at a time in the music industry where the music industry is beginning to catch up with me a little bit.”
Charli explained: “We’re at this time now where being an artist like me is actually quite common and the norm and with things like hyperpop existing. It’s like that is now a tangible genre that not only weird kids who have great taste can understand but playlisters can understand or whatever.
“This album feels very cyclical in many ways … people can understand who I am now.”