| At only 22 years old, one could be forgiven for thinking that British pop star and songwriter Charli xcx had found fame young. However, for the Hertfordshire girl, otherwise known as Charlotte Aitchison, success in the industry has been a long time coming. |
| “I remember pretty much like every year for four years of my life being like, the one to watch, and I was like, you know, obviously it’s a great compliment but I was kind of over it by like year two,” she told Reuters at a rooftop shoot in the heart of east London. “I was like, aren’t people watching now?” |
| Having released singles since 2008 she explains that she nearly gave up her pop star dreams to focus on songwriting, finding it “exhausting trying to explain my vision to people when they’re not ready to hear it.” |
| However, Charli explains that “suddenly pop music changed and I became, kind of, part of that structure weirdly enough.” She adds, “I think pop music has just become more emotional and audiences have become more intelligent. Like, you know, younger audiences have become a lot more open to more variation in the music they listen to.” |
| Charli is now a seasoned songwriter having written and featured on international smash hits, “I Love It” with Swedish pop duo Icona Pop and “Fancy” with rapper Iggy Azalea. “I Love It” hit number 1 in the UK, and went two times platinum in the US alone, while “Fancy” held number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US for seven weeks, becoming a triple platinum seller. When asked if she could retire off the success of these two tracks alone, Charli sheepishly responded, “I could be happy…It all takes like a really long time for everything to come through but yeah I mean I’m definitely paying my bills. Thanks Icona Pop!” |
When asked if she could sense that “Fancy” was going to become the sensation that it was, Charli replied, “I thought that that song was super cool. Me and Iggy were really feeling that song and I think a lot of other people actually weren’t. They were just like, ‘yes, you know…’ and we were like no there is something special about this and when she told me her idea for the video which really was all her, like the Clueless thing, I was like wow, this is cool and I feel like the video definitely really elevated that song to like a stratospheric kind of level.”
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| These hits were followed by Charli’s first major solo success, her single, “Boom Clap”, a top 10 hit both sides of the Atlantic, selling over 1.5 million copies worldwide. |
| Charli is now releasing her new single “Break The Rules” on October 19 ahead of the release of her new album, “Sucker”, in the new year. |
| “It’s a pop album but it has a punk element, a punk edge to it and it’s definitely kind of like possibly the most raw and wild thing I’ve done, and definitely the thing I’m most proud of you know,” she explains. “It feels like I’ve really found my voice making this album which is so nice, you know.” |
| Charli is currently on a headline tour of the US and will be supporting Katy Perry on her 2015 ‘The Prismatic’ European Tour. |
