20. True Romance by Charli XCX

 20. True Romance by Charli XCX

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGmM2l39LEs&list=PLrwB2tGkO7bKz-kWcRP7MSm2DYpoQfPUz

When I first heard Australian rapper Iggy Azalea's song "Fancy" on the radio in 2014, I didn't care much for Iggy's rapping. In fact, I found it more annoying that pretty much any rapping I had ever heard. But there was this ear-worm chorus sung by Charli XCX that got me to wondering what else this dark-haired girl had written. What Google told me was that while Charli had put out some music on MySpace and released a few mix tapes, she had only one bona fide album from 2013 called "True Romance." So I YouTubed the album and upon hearing the first song "Nuclear Seasons" I knew I'd found a type of music that was much different from anything that I was used to listening to. It sounded a bit like electronic dance music, but it had lyrics and layers to it that were much more interesting than the typical EDM club music I'd heard before (all of which I found to be really repetitive and boring). I wasn't sure what to call it. It wasn't quite pop music, and it wasn't quite dance music. It seemed to be more akin to art rock, but it really wasn't rock. It was its own thing.

I found out later that the term for this type of music is "Hyperpop," although it's also been called synth pop and gothic pop. However, Charli rejects all of those labels, even though she did refer to the music on her debut album as "Emotional Pop." At first, I wasn't sure if I liked it or not. But I found myself going back to the album repeatedly over the next year as one of my get-ready-in-the-morning albums. And the more I found out about Charli XCX -- her real name is Charlotte Emma Aitchison -- the more intrigued I became with her music. It turns out that she has synesthesia--a condition in which the brain interprets sound by seeing colors--and she actually sees colors in the music that she writes. She said that the songs on True Romance are mostly shades of purple. She prefers music that she sees as black, pink, purple or red, and she gave away what turned out to be the first hit song that she ever wrote--"I Love It" by the Swedish group Icona Pop--because she thought the song was the wrong color for her. Anyway, I bring this all up to show that there is a reason that the album cover is predominately black, pink, purple, and red. How you see the colors on the cover are similar to how she sees colors in music.

2014 and 2015 turned out to be a banner years for Charli, as she had her first big solo hit with the song "Boom, Clap" from the movie "The Fault in Our Stars." Her record company wanted to capitalize on her new popularity, so they got her to release a more mainstream pop album titled "Sucker." Along with "Boom, Clap," the album had hits with "Break the Rules," "Doing It," and "Famous." The rest of the album songs are really good pop, but they are a different kind of sound than what we got on True Romance. The record company continued to try to pressure Charli to do more mainstream songs, but after 2016, she said she wasn't going to release any more songs that she didn't love. She took back control of her own artistic future, and she faded from the pop music scene. Well, not really. She kept writing really good pop songs that other artists charted with, all the while experimenting with new sounds and collaborating with other artists. Her influence on other pop artists is pretty big, which is one reason why Taylor Swift asked Charli to go on tour with her in 2018. Of course, when the pandemic hit in 2020, a lot of artists stopped performing and took time off from making music. But Charli recorded and released the album "How I'm Feeling Now" while on Covid lockdown in her home. But of all the songs, mix tapes, and albums she's released over the last decade, I still like True Romance the best. 

Warning! Charli does use the F-word in some of her songs, so they aren't the kind you can listen to while around the kids. But I discovered True Romance around the time I started hating my job at Boise State, and the F-word was uttered by me more than once every morning while I was in the shower and started thinking about how I was about to face another work day in which every single meeting with my so-called superiors would be a humiliating kick in the crotch. Fortunately, a mix of Charli XCX and AC/DC (who never curse in their lyrics) somehow got me by until I managed to find a better job that didn't make me feel like dropping F-bombs in the shower in the morning. Also, Charli will use "shit" quite freely on some songs. It's definitely not the kind of album I could have listened to as a teenager in my basement bedroom. And my wife doesn't understand why I listen to this album either. When she hears me playing it, she'll say something like, "Why are you listening to that?!" Fortunately, I'm an old man now, and I get to listen to whatever I want. At least, I get to whenever Julie has already gone to work and I'm getting ready in the morning by myself--or with my poodles that like Charli XCX just fine! Yes, I realize that hyperpop written by a 20-year-old English woman is not really the kind of music that most people would think and old 50+ year old man like me would be listening to. But what can I say--maybe my ears aren't always as old as the rest of me.

Nardo