Rating: 6/10

Charli XCX has been described over the years as the ‘future of pop music’. After leaving fans waiting for five years, her third studio album ‘Charli‘ attempts to live up to this futuristic label; with a synth-pop almost sci-fi-esque project with plenty of guest features. When Charli’s unique style works, it works really well – but there are a lot of moments where it doesn’t work and it all honestly feels a bit weird and hard to listen to.

Before delving into the more experimental moments of the project, it’s worth noting that there are a fair few traditional pop songs. ‘1999‘, one of two collaborations with singer Troye Sivan on this album, feels like a normal electro-pop song: it’s upbeat, has a quirky and catchy chorus and the voices of the two sound really nice as they harmonise over nostalgic lyrics. Another pop collaboration, ‘Gone‘, with Christine and the Queens is just as much of a pop smash, with the voices of the two singers working perfectly over the background synths.

Over the fifteen track project, in total there are thirteen guest artists credited. Whilst the aforementioned features work really well, I feel that some, like Lizzo on the track ‘Blame It On Your Love‘, really aren’t used to their full potential. Lizzo is absolutely massive at the moment, but it’s a disservice that the rapper only got to rap for twenty seconds on what is a really great song. Then on track ‘February 2017‘ Charli and Clairo go back and forth over the song’s only verse, but it’s a real tease that the track only lasts for two minutes, before Korean-American singer Yaeji sings an outro which feels like it’s just been thrown on a bit randomly.

The track ‘Click‘ is perhaps one of the standout moments of weirdness on this project. German singer Kim Petras and Estonian rapper Tommy Cash were both unknown to me, but they dominate the track, with each artist getting their own verses. They are both okay on the song, but all the vocal performances are overshadowed by the electronic, techno-synths, in particular during the outro of the song. I’d really recommend skipping to 3:22 on ‘Click‘ just to hear the outro. Yes it’s experimental, but I honestly can’t credit it for any other reasons. It doesn’t flow with the song and whilst it may be edgy and futuristic, it’s just painful to listen to, with little to no musical value to it. What’s perhaps most surprising is that the next track in the album is the really nice sounding slower dance-pop tune ‘Warm‘ featuring Haim: it’s honestly a bizarre choice to have these polar opposites next to each other and it doesn’t pay off.

Other synth-heavy tracks that don’t land for me include the slower track ‘Thoughts‘, which feels like it would have been a great track if it had a different instrumental. That said, in some cases like on ‘Silver Cross‘, the synths are more bass-heavy and I feel like they help add emphasis to the vocals of the track, rather than detracting from them. If every track on the album utilised synths in this style, this review would be very different, but sadly this track is an outlier.

I also have to mention ‘Shake It‘ which I honestly can’t really comprehend. It’s sort of catchy, but it’s also absolutely wild. I’ve never heard anything like the introduction to this song before and I wouldn’t be able to guess that it is a Charli XCX song, with the features of Big Freedia, CupcakKe, Brooke Candy and Pabllo Vittar being given the platform by Charli to demonstrate their talents as she takes a backseat. I had no idea what Brazilian singer Pabllo Vittar says, but I quite liked the sound of it, but all things considered, this song is weird and sadly not the sort of thing I could ever imagine listening to again.

Overall I respect that Charli XCX has done something different with this project, but for me, most of the standout moments came from the more classic pop-style singles. Her more experimental synth-heavy tracks were a struggle to listen to at times and the instrumentals often overshadowed the Charli’s solid vocal performance. I’ve not been an avid follower of Charli in the past, so it’s hard to judge if this project was worth the five year wait since her last studio album, but that said, hopefully fans won’t have to wait as long for future releases from this futuristic pop-star.