Crash (Charli XCX album)
Crash is the fifth studio album by British singer Charli XCX, released on 18 March 2022 by Asylum Records and Atlantic Records. It was her last album to be released under her record contract with Asylum Records. Charli announced the album title, release date, and artwork on 4 November 2021. Her website was also updated with information about the album's 2022 tour. The album was preceded by the singles "Good Ones", "New Shapes" featuring Christine and the Queens and Caroline Polachek, "Beg for You" featuring Rina Sawayama, "Baby", "Every Rule" and "Used to Know Me".
Whereas Charli's prior work was known for its experimental, hyperpop production, Crash features a more conventional dance-pop sound, with Charli dubbing it her "major label sell-out" record. Desiring to play a satirical role, she "hypersexualized herself", performed songs written for her by writers, and used an A&R executive for the first time in her career. Songs from the album include elements of pop music of the '80s and '90s, and Charli has cited Janet Jackson, among others, as a musical influence for the album. David Cronenberg's 1996 film of the same name inspired aesthetic themes of the album, including the title and artwork.
Crash received generally positive reviews from music critics and became Charli's most commercially successful album until the release of her next album, Brat. It topped the charts in Australia, Ireland and the United Kingdom. It also became her first top-ten album in New Zealand and the United States.
Background and recording
In September 2019, Charli XCX released her third studio album, Charli, to critical acclaim. A previous version of her third album was originally slated for a 2017 release, although Charli later decided to scrap that project following most of its demo tracks being leaked on the Internet. Following the release of Charli, she explained in an interview with music magazine The Fader: "I'm not supposed to say this, I'm supposed to be like, in it, 'this album , stream it, buy it', but I'm like, already thinking about the next one, it's done, I'm onto the next level". A month after its release, she confirmed that she was already working on another album. In November 2019, she then stated that her current plans for the next year included the creation of two new albums.During the months of January and February 2020, Charli published Instagram stories of herself in the studio with a variety of producers, including Patrik Berger and Justin Raisen, both of whom had previously collaborated on Charli's debut album True Romance. She also had recording sessions with longtime executive producer A. G. Cook, as well as Deaton Chris Anthony.
In March 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, recording sessions for the album were canceled. On 6 April 2020, Charli XCX announced through a public Zoom call with fans that she would be working on a new album in self-isolation, with the tentative title How I'm Feeling Now. Charli decided to postpone Crash recording sessions, then only known loosely as the "Janet album", and began working on a new fourth studio album spur of the moment. Work on this album began in Charli's home on 3 April and continued until the album's release date of 15 May. Charli had first mentioned the "Janet album" on 6 April, when she posted a screenshot of a conversation with Cook, where she said, "And I wanted to do Janet album in September into quicker album in December", implying that she originally planned to release the "Janet album" in September and a "quicker", more impromptu album in December of the same year. Following the release of How I'm Feeling Now, Charli hinted that she was back at work on the "Janet album".
On 13 March 2021, she announced on TikTok that the album would be "poptastic". Days later, on 19 March, Charli debuted new songs for the first time on a Bandsintown virtual show, which would become commonly known amongst fans as "What You Want" and "Don't Think Twice". Following the event, she gave an interview in which she again referred to the album as "poptastic" and added that she was "feeling extremely creative".
On 1 November 2021, she tweeted that she would be disclosing secrets about the album that week, and five hours later, she revealed the collaborators she would be working with on the album: Lotus IV, Christine and the Queens, Caroline Polachek, Oscar Holter, Digital Farm Animals, Rina Sawayama, Ian Kirkpatrick, Jason Evigan, Justin Raisen, SadPony, Ariel Rechtshaid, Ilya, Oneohtrix Point Never, Mike Wise, and Jon Shave. Oscar Holter had already been confirmed as a producer for the album with the album's first single "Good Ones". A collaboration with Caroline Polachek and Christine and the Queens, with production from Deaton Chris Anthony, had also been teased a few days before the announcement. The song, titled "New Shapes", was released as the album's second single. In early 2022, the third single from the album, "Beg for You" featuring Rina Sawayama, was released. A collaboration with Sawayama had been teased since 2019, and both artists confirmed there had been different previous attempts at a collaboration.
Release and promotion
On 15 August 2021, following the announcement of the album's first song, she tweeted a picture of a grave with her own name engraved on it and the death date "March 18, 2022", which was thought to be the album's release day. The next day, she tweeted a behind-the-scenes video of a photoshoot of that grave, utilizing a fragment of "Good Ones". This grave would be featured in "Good Ones"' music video after it was released. It was widely hinted that the album would be published on 18 March 2022, because after the release of "Good Ones", she stated that the album might be released around that date.The album was formally announced on 4 November, an hour before the release of the second song, on all of Charli's social media, along with the announcement of a 37-date tour, titled Crash: The Live Tour, across North America and Europe and a link to pre-save the album. It was also revealed that the album will have 12 tracks and last for 33 minutes. Later that day, Charli went live on TikTok and shared new snippets of new tracks, including the then-unknown tracks "Baby", "Constant Repeat", "Beg for You", and three other snippets.
On 19 December 2021, Charli posted an Instagram post with the caption "2022 sneak peak...", which included numerous images related to work for the album cycle, including images of photo op and recording behind the scenes, a talk with Rina Sawayama about their collaboration, and a video of Charli practicing with background dancers for the track "Baby".
Throughout late 2021 and early January 2022, Charli continued to share the samples she teased on TikTok, most notably the tracks "Beg for You" and "Baby". On 4 January, Charli uploaded a snippet of what appeared to be a music video for the song "Baby". On 20 January, it was reported via iTunes that the album's fifth track will be 2 minutes and 48 seconds long, which was later confirmed to be "Beg for You". On the same day, Charli revealed the title and a studio snippet of her collaboration with Rina Sawayama, "Beg for You". On 21 February 2022, the singer announced that a deluxe edition would be released the same week as the standard album. However, the deluxe edition was released a week later than the standard one, on 25 March.
The album's liner notes dedicate it to Sophie, a friend and collaborator of Charli who died in early 2021. Sophie had produced a number of tracks for Charli including the entirety of her 2016 EP Vroom Vroom, as well as the majority of her scrapped third studio album.
On 23 June, she participated in the Doritos event "Live from the Upside Down" in collaboration with the Netflix series Stranger Things.
On 14 December, she made a live performance on Discord.
Singles
"Good Ones" was released as the album's lead single on 2 September 2021. It is a dance track mixed with synth-pop and electropop. The song received acclaim from critics, with most of them highlighting its synth-pop production. Its music video, directed by Hannah Lux Davis and filmed in Mexico, was released the same day as the song. "New Shapes" was released on 4 November 2021 as the album's second single, featuring Christine and the Queens and Caroline Polachek. The latter track was also met with positive reviews from critics for her move away from hyperpop and towards synth-pop. The music video was released a few days after. Charli XCX was set to appear on the ninth episode of Saturday Night LiveThemes
From as early as May 2021, Charli took on an evil, demonic or soulless persona while teasing and promoting the record, so as to play into a deal-with-the-devil idea. George Griffiths of the Official Charts Company compared the concept to Marina and the Diamonds' Electra Heart. Visuals for the album include "femme fatale powers" and a multitude of "dark spells and curses" as well as signature nods to both cars and car crashes. Several publications found references to the David Cronenberg films, mainly the 1996 film of the same name and Videodrome, the former of which is also an aesthetic inspiration for the album. Charli talked about the aesthetic themes and the reference to the Cronenberg film by saying, "Referencing Cronenberg is unavoidable when the album is called Crash. For this album, I was exploring the idea of what the most sexualized, heightened, vampiric version of myself could be. And I think that also plays into the 'selling your soul' narrative danger – it's very volatile, the image of this album. I think some people are really turned off by it, which is quite interesting, and some people love it. It's heightened sex, sexiness – that's where I was at. And I think that does relate back to Cronenberg's Crash because that book and that movie is about these people who want and feed off their favorite thing and will go to any length to feel this sexuality and connection." In accordance to this statement, Under the Radar wrote in their review: "The intersection of violence, sexuality, and technology explored within the album's cover art calls to mind influential science fiction writer and cultural prophet J. G. Ballard's contentious 1973-released novel Crash – and, by extension, Cronenberg's 1996-released film adaptation. Deft studies of humanity's psychological and physical transformation alongside technological and cultural advancement, both novel and film reveal a world 'beginning to flower into wounds.' This merging of flesh and blood with steel and plastic is fully embodied within the album's production, which applies a highly technical and intricately calculated approach, pristine melodies scrubbed of any discernible warmth or familiarity, courtesy of Charli XCX and her team."On 8 April 2020, Charli told a fan through Zoom that the album was influenced by the music of Janet Jackson, an artist who has frequently been cited by PC Music label producers such as Cook, as well as EasyFun, as a source of inspiration. Then, on 21 April, she told Stereogum that this was her most polished album yet, both musically and artistically, and that she was currently listening to a lot of Jackson's songs. She indicated that the album will be a musical departure for her. On 5 May, she indicated that it will be her most "pop" album yet, and that she wanted the song videos to be extremely theatrical, even suggesting that she play different characters in them. On 29 October, she said that while there remained a lot of Jackson influence on the album at the time, it was no longer exclusively influenced by her, and there were now additional inspirations.
On 23 May 2021, she indicated that the album was "for the True Romance angels" and that she wanted to have a song that is "Stay Away 2.0", referencing a track from her debut album. On 8 July, Charli posted that she was extremely into songs that she did not compose.
In a 2024 interview with The Face, Charli stated that, with Crash, she had set out to make a commercially viable record and that she was sick of the "vanilla palatable flatness" in the pop landscape at that moment. She admitted that, "There were songs on Crash that I would never listen to", picking out "Yuck" as an example; "I needed to switch after Crash – I wasn't born to do radio liners. That's not who I am at all."