Charli XCX

Charli XCX (2018)

Logo from Charli XCX

Charlotte Aitchison (born August 2, 1992 in Stevenage , Hertfordshire ), better known by her stage name Charli XCX , is a British singer and songwriter . She wrote songs for Iggy Azalea , Icona Pop , Hilary Duff , Selena Gomez , Rita Ora , Britney Spears and Gwen Stefani , among others .

Life

Charli XCX is the daughter of a Scottish father and an Indian mother from Uganda . She started writing her own songs at the age of eight and attended Bishop's Stortford College until 2010. According to her own statement, she has tone-color synesthesia , which means that she perceives sounds through different colors.

Career

Charli XCX performing at the Postivus Festival 2013

At age 14, Charli XCX was invited to play at a party in London after the promoter heard her songs on Myspace .

In 2008 the singles Emelline / Art Bitch and ! Franchesckaar! after which she was signed by This Is Music and IAMSOUND Records . Aitchison later released three more songs called Stay Away , Nuclear Seasons and You're the One , for which videos were also produced. At the end of 2011 she released two EPs. Charli XCX wrote the song I Love It , which was later recorded by the Swedish duo Icona Pop and reached high chart positions. When a producer played the song for the duo, they really wanted to record it. Their first album under a major label was released in April 2013 and is called True Romance . The album was named after the Quentin Tarantino film of the same name . Although it got an average score of 77 out of 100 on Metacritic , the album failed to enter any charts internationally.

In June 2013 Charli XCX announced that she was working on her second album. In between she released the single SuperLove , which despite previous announcements did not appear on the album. The song reached number 62 in the British single charts and was Charli XCX's first chart entry as a solo artist in these charts. On February 17th, 2014 the single Fancy was released, which was created in collaboration between Iggy Azalea and Charli XCX. The song reached high international charts and was both Azalea's and Charli XCX's first number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 . The music video for the single pays homage to the film Clueless - What Else! and was nominated in four categories at the MTV Video Music Awards 2014 , as well as in the categories Record of the Year and Best Pop Duo or Group Performance at the Grammy Awards 2015 . Her single Boom Clap , released in May 2014, is part of the soundtrack for the film Fate is a lousy traitor and is also included on her second album Sucker . The song reached the top 10 in several countries. Charli XCX released the second single of their second album on August 25, 2014 under the name Break the Rules . In September 2014 Katy Perry announced that Charli XCX would be performing as a support act for their European concerts as part of the Prismatic World Tour . In November 2014, she performed as a live act at the MTV Europe Music Awards 2014 , where she was nominated for Best Newcomer and Best Push Act , Boom Clap and Break the Rules . In January 2015, Break the Rules was the theme song of the ninth Season of I'm a Celebrity - Get Me Out of Here! and then entered the German , Austrian and Swiss single charts . The follow-up single Doing It with Rita Ora reached the top 10 in the UK.

In 2016 the Vroom Vroom EP was released , which should give a foretaste of the new album. At the end of 2016 she released the single After the Afterparty (with Lil Yachty as a guest rapper). This was originally planned to be the album's lead single, but was removed from it after the success of the 2017 single Boys . Her mixtape Number 1 Angel was released in March 2017 . Her mixtape Pop 2 was released at the end of the same year . The third album was originally supposed to be released in May 2017. However, after many unknown songs, which were originally planned and produced for the third album, appeared illegally on the Internet in the summer of the same year, the album's release was postponed indefinitely. Since May 2018 she has appeared with singer Camila Cabello in the opening act of Taylor Swift's Reputation Tour . At the end of May Charli XCX released the single 5 In The Morning , at the end of June the double single Focus / No Angel and at the end of July the single Girls Night Out . At the beginning of October Charli announced her new single 1999 , a collaboration with singer Troye Sivan , which was released on October 5th and entered the UK charts at number 13. In May 2019 Charli XCX released the new single from their third album Blame It On Your Love in collaboration with US singer and rapper Lizzo . She then presented two new songs from her third album at festivals, a new song called Gone (in collaboration with French singer Christine and the Queens ) at the Primvera Festival and a second Troye Sivan collaboration called 2099 on the one organized by Troye Sivan Go West Festival. On June 7, 2019, the song Dream Glow from the game "BTS WORLD" was released, which she sang together with singers Jungkook, Jimin and Jin from the Kpop band BTS. In September 2019 Charli XCX's third studio album was released under the name Charli .

Musical style

Charli XCX's music is compared with the characteristic synthpop of the 1980s and with the ghostliness of Siouxsie Sioux or the early Madonna . She cites her influences with Christina Aguilera , Britney Spears , Spice Girls , Siouxsie and the Banshees , Kate Bush , Lil Wayne and Quentin Tarantino, among others . Individual sources classify Charli XCX's music as Goth Pop , Dark Pop or Electropop .

Meaning of the name

The meaning of her stage name has not yet been clearly explained by her. In an interview with the music magazine Rolling Stone , she explained that the XCX in her stage name does not stand for anything special, but represents everything she has done so far. She chose the name because it looks cool and is memorable. In an interview with details, however, she explained that her stage name stands for Kiss Charli Kiss and comes from her MSN Messenger name. However, since she found this term too boring, she told her music label that it was for "X-rated Cunt X-rated" ( X-rated denotes an age rating for strongly sexual content that is not suitable for minors; mostly porn films with this rating provided cunt is english for pussy would).

Discography

→ Main article : Charli XCX / discography

Studio albums

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
2013	True romance	-	-	-	UK85 (1 week) UK	-	First published: April 12, 2013
2014	Sucker	DE57 (1 week) DE	AT44 (2 weeks) AT	CH33 (2 weeks) CH	UK15 (6 weeks) UK	US28 (8 weeks) US	First published: December 15, 2014
2019	Charli	DE91 (1 week) DE	AT73 (1 week) AT	CH54 (1 week) CH	UK14 (2 weeks) UK	US42 (1 week) US	First published: September 13, 2019
2020	How I'm Feeling Now	-	-	-	UK33 (1 week) UK	US111 (1 week) US	First published: May 15, 2020

Artist awards

• Teen Choice Awards 2014 : Choice Music: R & B / Hip-Hop Song (Iggy Azalea ft. Charli XCX - Fancy)
• SESAC Pop Awards 2014: Songwriter of the Year , Song of the Year

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1. ↑ Charli XCX Biography. In: starpulse.com. Retrieved May 16, 2014 . 
2. ↑ Chris Tinkham: Charli XCX This Is Me. In: undertheradarmag.com. September 12, 2013, accessed September 17, 2014 . 
3. ↑ Alex Needham: Brit Pop Girls. In: Interview . July 27, 2009, accessed September 17, 2014 . 
4. ↑ Mark Savage: Charli XCX: Pop, punk and synaesthesia. In: BBC News . December 12, 2013, accessed September 17, 2014 . 
5. ↑ ^{a b} Laurence Lowe: Q&A: Charli XCX. In: Details. February 1, 2013, accessed December 22, 2014 . 
6. ↑ Christine Werthman: Q&A: Icona Pop. (No longer available online.) CMJ, December 19, 2012, archived from the original on December 28, 2013 ; accessed on September 17, 2014 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
7. ↑ CHARLI XCX - UK Singles Chart. Official Charts Company, accessed February 24, 2015 . 
8. ↑ ?EUROPE! ? @charli_xcx is going to get prismatic with us next February & March! Excited to welcome her to #ThePrismaticWorldTour! September 4, 2014, accessed September 17, 2014 . 
9. ↑ Let's Revisit Charli XCX's Perfect MTV EMAs Performance , Huffington Post, November 9, 2014
10. ↑ Caramanica, Jon: Untamed and Unabashed. Rolling Stone , March 11, 2012, accessed September 17, 2014 . 
11. ↑ British pop starlet Charli XCX, the particularly grown-up 21-year-old. Nashville Scene, accessed September 17, 2014 . 
12. ↑ Charli XCX | Biography. AllMusic, accessed September 17, 2014 . 
13. ^ Q&A: Charli XCX: Music + Books. Details, February 1, 2013, accessed September 17, 2014 . 
14. ↑ Jamieson Cox: Album Review: Lorde-Curated 'The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1' Soundtrack Is a Stellar Sonic Balancing Act. In: Billboard . November 18, 2014, accessed September 29, 2015 . 
15. ↑ Colleen Nika: Dark Star Rising: Charli XCX Talks Rave Roots and Her Colorful Future. In: Rolling Stone . Retrieved September 17, 2014 . 

Web links

Commons : Charli XCX  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Official website of Charli XCX (English)
• Charli XCX at SoundCloud
• Charli XCX at Discogs (English)