Album: Charli XCX - Crash | reviews, news & interviews
Album: Charli XCX - Crash
Album: Charli XCX - Crash
Fifth album from a reliably bright and musically astute pop star and songwriter
Charli XCX is the pop stars’ pop star.
The subject matter throughout is love and sex, infidelity and longing, but the only truly original narrative is the entertaining and borderline brilliant “Yuck”, a catchy, squidgy slow-funkin’ number wherein Charli cringes at a soppy suitor (“Looking at me all sucky/Quit acting like a puppy”). This isn’t to suggest this is the only good track, far from it. Anyone who’s heard the bangin’ thump-pop single “Good Ones” will know there’s at least one other corker. In fact, there’s a bunch of them.
The chugging garage-beaty “Beg For You”, with Rina Sawayama, showcases XCX’s way with a chorus and also her flighty, airy, characterful voice, while the retro-house floorfiller “Used to Know” is a cheerfully blatant lift from Robin S’s deathless 1993 hit, “Show Me Love” (yet another!). And there’s a strand of Eighties-flavoured electro-funk on the album, most notably "New Shapes", featuring Christine and the Queens, which owes a slight debt to Van Halen’s “Jump”, but also the sex-fuelled “Baby” and the aforementioned “Yuck”.
Other songs worth a visit include Madonna-ish Vocoder stomper “Lightning” – featuring unlikely flamenco guitar - and the wistfully sweet and floaty “Constant Repeat” (“You could have had a bad girl by your side”!). All in all, there’s plenty of juice here, plenty to draw the listener back. Charlie XCX is a smart, sassy, likeable post-Lady Gaga star, and Crash is a solid addition to her canon.
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