The most overlooked Charli XCX song, according to Charli XCX: “People were trying to suss me out”
As we stumble out of the depths of another weary British winter, the heady days of Charli XCX‘s Brat feel somewhat like a fever dream. It was a record that took over the entire summer and subsequent verbiage of everyone in the Western world. In fact, Charli’s endorsement of a US Presidential candidate simply read ‘Kamala IS brat’ and, in a scary indictment of the dystopic world we now live in, required no further context.
The digital footprint of this record was all-encompassing and thrust Charli XCX to mega-stardom. While it was a cultural thunderclap, Brat wasn’t the product of an overnight success story. Oh no, this was Charli XCX’s sixth album and marked what many would consider the long-overdue public success of an artist who has been churning away in the seedy depths of the music scene. Cutting her teeth as a vocalist in the rave scene as a teenager to penning bedroom-pop number one hits for other artists, Charli’s influence on the last decade of pop can be easily traced, either directly or indirectly.
Before the wine-soaked tees and blackout sunglasses of Brat was a scruffy-haired pop star, drenching herself in the dreamy technicolour of bedroom pop. ‘Break The Rules’ and ‘Boom Clap’ were early breakout hits for the artist and gave her a test of personal success, outside her role as one of pop music’s most prolific songwriters.
While they were huge hits in their own right, they’ve been somewhat eclipsed by the mammoth success of Brat. To many hardcore Charli XCX fans, they represent the halcyon days of devotedly supporting an artist on the fringes of commercialism. Rarely does the artist share the same enthusiasm for the past as their fans, and in the case of Charli XCX, the future is a more exciting landscape.
So when Vulture asked what she thought was one of her most overlooked tracks, it was surprising to hear her pick her very first release: “I’d probably say ‘Stay Away’, which was the first song that I released. I think it probably did have a chance to have a profile, but just because it was the first song, people were trying to suss me out and check if I was the real deal and if I was worth their time.”
Adding: “All of that judgmental stuff can get in the way of if the song is good or not. People wanted to know my background, and if I was authentic and if I was cool. But I feel like, over the years, that song has become an unsung hero of True Romance. Me and Ariel Rechtshaid, who produced that song, we’ve always talked about a rerelease as part of a new album. I actually think it would fit so well on Crash, to be honest. I think it’s still one of my best songs.”
It’s a brooding track that fits the world of adolescence Charli set out in her debut, True Romance, but has the edgier sensibilities of her more recent albums, glueing together the artist she once was with who she is now. Perhaps with how brazen she was on her Brat campaign, uncompromising with the bureaucratic powers in music, she could clearly hear the voice that existed in that early artist. A voice that brings emotion to the party, authenticity to the digital and the word ‘brat’ to the political.
