Charli XCX
Charlotte Emma Aitchison, known professionally as Charli XCX, is a British singer, songwriter and actress. She began posting songs on Myspace in 2008 before entering the London rave scene. Signing a recording contract with Asylum Records in 2010, Charli XCX released a series of singles and mixtapes in the early 2010s. In 2012, she was featured on "I Love It" by Swedish duo Icona Pop, which became her first number-one song in the UK and received global success. Her positively reviewed debut studio album, True Romance, failed to meet commercial expectations.
In 2014, Charli XCX was featured on Iggy Azalea's single "Fancy", which became her most streamed song and one of the year's best-selling singles worldwide. The same year, she released "Boom Clap", which became her first solo top-ten single in the US. Her second studio album, Sucker, spawned the singles "Break the Rules" and "Doing It". She began working alongside producers associated with the UK collective PC Music in 2015, developing a more experimental sound and image. She released the EP Vroom Vroom and the mixtapes Number 1 Angel and Pop 2. Her third studio album, Charli, produced the hit single "1999". Her fourth studio album, How I'm Feeling Now, was made during the COVID-19 lockdowns and received critical acclaim.
Charli XCX's fifth studio album, Crash, became her first number-one album in the UK and Australia. She contributed the UK top-ten single "Speed Drive" as part of the soundtrack of the 2023 film Barbie. Her sixth studio album, Brat, became her second UK number-one album and was named the best album of 2024 by various publications, such as Billboard and Rolling Stone. It spawned the UK top-ten hit "Apple" and her remix album brought her second number-one hit, "Guess", featuring Billie Eilish. Brat and its songs earned eight Grammy Award nominations at the 67th annual ceremony, including Album of the Year, and three wins: Best Dance Pop Recording for "Von Dutch", Best Dance/Electronic Album, and Best Recording Package. Culturally, the album sparked a phenomenon dubbed Brat Summer, which served as an inspiration for Aidan Zamiri's film The Moment that she co-produced and starred in.
In addition to her solo work, Charli XCX has co-written songs for other artists, including Iggy Azalea's "Beg for It", Selena Gomez's "Same Old Love", Blondie's "Tonight", the Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello collaboration "Señorita", and the Sigala and Rita Ora collaboration "You for Me". She was awarded the ASCAP Global Impact Award in 2024 and featured on the 2024 Gold House's most impactful Asian A100 list, making her the first woman of British Indian origin to be honoured.
Early life
Charli XCX was born as Charlotte Emma Aitchison in Cambridge, England on 2 August, 1992, the only child of nurse and flight attendant Shameera and entrepreneur and talent agent Jon Aitchison. Her mother was born into a Muslim family of Gujarati Indian descent in Uganda and moved to England after being expelled by the Idi Amin regime, while her father is Scottish. She grew up in Start Hill, Essex, and spent weekends with her maternal grandparents in Crawley, West Sussex. She attended Bishop's Stortford College in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire. She briefly lived with a friend in Joensuu, Finland, describing it as a "frightening experience."She has spoken extensively about her difficulties at school growing up, stating that she was a "half-Indian girl with frizzy hair" among predominantly white people and that she was bullied and discriminated against for her Indian heritage.
She demonstrated an affinity for music from an early age, being interested in acts such as the Spice Girls and Britney Spears, and began writing songs at the age of 14. Her stage name "Charli XCX" was taken from her MSN Messenger screen name as she could not think of anything else and did not have a manager at the time, telling the Grammy Awards that she would stick with it and "Not pull a Prince".
Career
2006–2011: Career beginnings
At 14, Aitchison persuaded her parents to grant her a loan to record her first album, 14, and in early 2008 she began posting songs from the album, as well as numerous other demos, on her official Myspace page. This caught the attention of a promoter running numerous illegal warehouse raves and parties in East London, who invited her to perform at them. She was billed on flyers under the stage name Charli XCX; "XCX" was her MSN Messenger display name when she was younger. Despite the illicit nature of the gigs, her parents were supportive of her career and attended several raves with her. In late 2008, while 14 was never commercially released, she released the two singles and double A-side "Emelline"/"Art Bitch" under Orgy Music. She has since frequently expressed her distaste for her music of the time, going as far to call it "gimmicky dance tracks" and "fucking terrible Myspace music". At the age of 18, Charli XCX moved to London to study for a fine art degree at UCL's Slade School of Fine Art but dropped out in her second year.In 2010, Charli XCX was signed to Asylum Records. She later described herself as being "lost". In an interview with The Guardian, Charli XCX said, "I was still in school. I'd just come out of this weird rave scene, and I wasn't really sure what to make of that. And, when I got signed, I hated pop music; I wanted to make bad rap music. I didn't know who I was. I didn't know what I liked. Even though I was signed, I was still figuring it out." She eventually flew to Los Angeles to meet producers and found it "wasn't working out for me" until she met with American producer Ariel Rechtshaid. They had a two-hour session and wrote the song "Stay Away". She stated that was "when things started to come together". Early in 2011, she was featured on the Alex Metric single "End of the World". She left during the second year of her degree course at the Slade School of Fine Art to focus on her music career. In May and November 2011, she released the singles "Stay Away" and "Nuclear Seasons" respectively, and gained attention from music website Pitchfork, where she earned "Best New Track" accolades for both; the former was eventually named to the site's "Best Tracks of 2011" list.
2012–2015: Breakthrough with ''True Romance'' and ''Sucker''
In addition to Rechtshaid, she began working with Swedish producer Patrik Berger. He sent her two beats, and she quickly wrote songs for each, one of which became "I Love It" and the other of which became "You're the One". She stated she did not end up releasing "I Love It" herself as she could not reconcile it with her sound, but in 2012, Swedish duo Icona Pop re-recorded the song and released it as a single featuring her vocals. The song became an international hit, hitting number one in Charli XCX's home country and climbing to number seven on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2013. In June, she released "You're the One" as a single from her EP of the same name, followed by her debut mixtape Heartbreaks and Earthquakes, a one-track file consisting of eight songs, including a cover of the Blood Orange song "Champagne Coast" and Odd Future's remix of "You're the One". On Halloween, she released a new song called "Cloud Aura" featuring Brooke Candy, followed by her second mixtape Super Ultra, released exclusively through her website in November. In early 2013, she released "You " and announced her debut album, followed by "What I Like" in March. True Romance was released on 12 April 2013. It peaked at number 85 on the UK Albums Chart, at number five on the US Billboard Top Heatseekers, and at number 11 on the Australian Hitseekers Albums Chart. The album was received well by music critics, earning a 76/100 on Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 based on reviews from mainstream critics, indicating the album's "generally favorable reviews". In May, she released "Just Desserts", a song with Welsh singer-songwriter Marina.Charli XCX began writing her second album in mid-2013, saying she initially wanted to go to India to record, but later decided she wanted to record in France, she said: "Two months ago, I wanted to go to India and record it, and now I want to record it in France. So I feel like nothing is definite – like, I feel very all-over-the-place at the moment. But at the moment, my heart's set on going to France and recording it, but that was different two months ago, so who knows what's going to happen?" Frustrated with the music industry, she ended up going to Sweden, isolating herself from her record label, and made a punk-inspired album over a month. Charli XCX worked on the album with Patrik Berger; of their process, she later reflected that it was "not thought-about, everything really spontaneous We don't think – it's like the first thing that comes out of my mouth is the cut on the record." Their initial work, however, was eventually scrapped for a more "pop-oriented" album. The album included a song called "Mow That Lawn", which was debuted live a year later at Ilosaarirock Festival in Finland.
In late 2013, "SuperLove" was released as the lead single from the album and reached number 62 on the UK Singles Chart, becoming Charli XCX's first solo entry on the chart. In January 2014, she released a song called "Allergic to Love" on her SoundCloud. While writing the album, she did further sessions with Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo, Rostam Batmanglij from Vampire Weekend, production duo Stargate, John Hill and a session with Dr. Luke which she said "wasn't for me". In an interview with DIY magazine, she stated that she wrote the record for girls and wants them to feel "a sense of empowerment". Charli XCX explained in her tour diary with Replay Laserblast that the record's genre is still pop but has a very shouty, girl-power, girl-gang, Bow Wow Wow feel to it at the same time. The album was influenced by the Hives, Weezer, the Ramones and 1960s yé-yé music. "SuperLove" was eventually scrapped from the album.
In early 2014, Charli XCX was featured on Australian rapper Iggy Azalea's single "Fancy"; the track topped the US Billboard Hot 100, becoming both artists' first number-one single on the chart. Charli XCX expanded her portfolio of songwriting for other artists during this period, with credits on Azalea's 2014 single "Beg for It", Ryn Weaver's debut single "OctaHate", and material for acts including Sky Ferreira, Neon Jungle, Rihanna, and Gwen Stefani. In mid-2014, Charli XCX contributed the song "Boom Clap" to the soundtrack of the film The Fault in Our Stars. "Boom Clap" peaked at number eight on the Billboard Hot 100 and at number six in the UK and was certified platinum in Australia. In August, a release date of October was announced for her new album Sucker, along with the lead single "Break the Rules". She said the song came about after she had made her punk album in Sweden, when she "came out of the other side of that punk phase and translated it into something more pop". She stated that the album was "obviously about not giving a fuck". The album was pushed back the next month due to the success of "Boom Clap" and was officially released in December 2014 in North America and February 2015 in Europe. It debuted at number 28 on the US Billboard 200, making it Charli XCX's first album to enter the chart and number 15 on the UK Albums Chart. The album's third single, "Doing It" featuring fellow British singer Rita Ora, was released in February and peaked at number 8 on the UK Singles Chart.
Charli XCX considers herself a feminist and wrote one of the songs on Sucker, "Body of My Own", as a feminist statement. She appeared in the documentary about gender equality The F Word and Me, which premiered on BBC Three in 2015. Charli XCX opened for Katy Perry on the European leg of Perry's Prismatic World Tour in early 2015, headlined her own UK tour, and featured alongside R&B artist Tinashe on fellow singer Ty Dolla Sign's single "Drop That Kitty". A music video for the single "Famous" was released on 23 March 2015. and was ranked by Time and Pitchfork as the 5th and 19th best pop music video of the year, respectively. In July and August 2015, Charli XCX co-headlined a US tour with Bleachers. She announced on 21 August that, for "personal reasons", a planned second leg of the tour would not go ahead.