Day 356: Charli xcx - Pop 2
I thought I was pretty rugged in what kind of music I can listen to, but I just got so unsettled by an album that I needed a palate cleanser – 50 minutes of chanting in Latin by occultists is a little bit much. I need something upbeat, so I think a bit of Charli xcx might finally be in order. I know it’s a sin to admit this as a pop fan, but I’ve only ever listened to BRAT. I know, don’t judge me.
Album cover courtesy of Asylum Records
Charli xcx is singer and songwriter from Cambridge, England, who’s been working in the music industry since she was very young, recording her first album at only 14 years old. She was posting her songs on her Myspace page and was discovered by a club promoter who hired her to play at illegal raves as a child (!) but she gave that up at 16 as she thought the drug-fuelled lifestyle that comes with that scene was bad for her. Since then, she’d released several hits and critically acclaimed albums, but she didn’t really become a household name until she released the 2024 sensation BRAT.
Pop 2 was released in 2017 as Charli xcx’s fourth mixtape, and it features a number of notable artists, including Tove Lo, Caroline Polachek, Kim Petras, Alma, MØ, and semi-recent Eurovision performer Tommy Cash. It opens with “Backseat” featuring Carly Rae Jepsen and also has a song called “Porsche”, there’s something comforting about knowing that whatever may be going on in the world, Charli xcx is probably somewhere doing a song about a car. And there’s nothing wrong with that, no one does an automotive banger like Charli xcx. I’m generally a very careful person but I think if I listened to “Vroom Vroom” while driving, I’d lose my licence.
Pop 2 suffers from a little bit of inconsistency in the quality. Weak points are definitely “I Got It” and “Femmebot” the latter of which just suffers from feeling like it’s half thought out with a weaker verse by Mykki Blanco. But then to balance out the quality, there are some songs that are insanely good, most notably “Track 10”, which I love. I also really like how well you can hear how she got to the style and vibe of BRAT, because you hear little whispers of it here and there. There’s something great about knowing that she’d been working for something like 16 years to get to becoming an overnight sensation with a generational album, and she’s only 34.
Pop 2 has a bit of variety in quality to it, but mostly it’s very strong, she’s really the MVP in her area of music and clearly she has been for a long time. Pop 2 gets an 8/10, it would be much higher if the whole mixtape managed to keep up the same quality as the stronger songs.