There is a weird assumption people make that somebody as successful as Charli XCX isn't smart because her persona is "I like cocaine and partying," and then are surprised when she can express herself like this. Like she says: "Another thing about being a pop star is that you cannot avoid the fact that some people are simply determined to prove that you are stupid."
Making music at any professional level is extremely hard work. Touring and dancing and hosting shows is even harder. It requires a substantial intellectual capacity and stamina to achieve. You either have these things yourself, or you are propped up entirely by others who have them and are invested in you for money's sake. Given Charli XCX's background, it's not actually surprising that she, in fact, has all the talent, skill, and intellect required to do this stuff herself.
Editing to add: Another place to look to learn that people with this skillset often have very very deep inner lives is Dua Lipa's book club podcast (https://www.service95.com/tag/book-club). As someone who used to run these kinds of in-depth interviews, I can say, she is damn good at it.
What you're saying is a very common "poptimist" trope of the last decade or two. To say that, actually, these vocalists are highly intelligent and largely responsible for their own success.
Charli XCX, like nearly all popstars, was propped up by the producers and writers who shaped her sound and composed large parts of the music. Producers have been there the whole way. In particular, her blowing up was highly influenced by the stylistic direction, composition, production and sound engineering of people associated with the PC Music record label. The statement that she had good enough taste to have been around these people is rather unfair -- she was around artistic innovators like Sophie, yes, but THEY are the ones that pioneered the sound.
The most common refrain is that popstars often write their music. This is misleading: they write the lyrics, suggest a general vibe, and some rough melodies or chords. And even this is a stretch many times. They are not composing or producing the music in any larger sense, and this is the pivotal part of actually making music.
One famous exception that comes to mind is Grimes, who largely actually /makes/ her own music. She rarely seems to get credit for this.
This is not to say that vocalist popstars don't bring a lot to the table. They do. But what they bring to the table is incredible performance skill and charisma. I think poptimism has gone too far, to the point that we think the product was responsible for creating itself.
> In particular, her blowing up was highly influenced by the stylistic direction, composition, production and sound engineering of people associated with the PC Music record label.
No, if anything Charli XCX was the one that put PC Music on the map. She has been a fairly big name since 2012
> she was around artistic innovators like Sophie, yes, but THEY are the ones that pioneered the sound.
Sophie didn’t pioneer the sound of PC Music any more than e.g. AG Cook, QT, Hannah Diamond, Danny L Harle, 100 gecs, or any of the other many artists involved, including Charli XCX
You’re talking as if PC Music is some huge label with a lot of help, when it’s mostly just AG Cook. He and Charli XCX collaborated on tracks for a couple of Charli’s albums
Charli XCX was around before PC Music, but the sound she is known for and became famous for originated from PC Music. The fact that she delivered a bit of "minor popstar" cred to them is fine, but the key to my point is that they determined the sound that made her iconic.
Sophie was an example. I didn't see it necessary to talk about all the artists involved in PC Music to make the point that the producers on the label pioneered the sound.
Look at the credits for her albums. She had producers and writers credited on every single song. This IS a lot of help. You're acting like she just did a couple of collabs with AG Cook and that's it. She had many different people helping her on the actual composition and production of every single song.
This is the point being refuted -- that the popstars are geniuses responsible for carrying the burden of their rise. It's mythology. The reality is that they bring performance skills and charisma to the table, some non-awful lyrical skill, and then the lion's share of actually making the music work is done by producers and writers. They would be nowhere without the producers. The producers would be nowhere without the popstars. But it's the most common poptimist mistake to confuse the popstar's charisma for the producer's mastery.
Your point is clear, but Charli does a lot of production on her albums, so I'm not sure she's the one to make this point about. She's not a once in a lifetime producing genius like Sophie, but she doesn't claim to be. Yung Lean did not produce the sound that made him famous either.
I think in the modern day, due to Internet, access to DAWs, etc, a lot of pop stars actually do/did much more of their own writing and production, see Billie & Finneas or Chappel Roan. It's just much more accessible, there's lots of pretty faces on social media so to really break out, you either need some real connections or real chops.
> The most common refrain is that popstars often write their music. This is misleading: they write the lyrics, suggest a general vibe, and some rough melodies or chords. And even this is a stretch many times. They are not composing or producing the music in any larger sense, and this is the pivotal part of actually making music.
To be fair, if they write the lyrics, define the vibe/feel of the song, and compose the melody and chord progression, then that does sound like the vast majority of the song. What's left - I guess some additional instrumentation, the percussion, production? To me it does sound fair to credit the popstar with having composed the music in this case.
The operative word was "rough". They give a few hints; they're not painstakingly mapping out the melodies and chords for every instrument and determining what those instruments are, and how they sound.
If you're writing for a guitar and voice, then you've basically got a song, but pop music is built on sometimes hundreds of different instruments and effects.
That seems like quite a high bar, to the extent that I'm not sure we could ever credit anyone with creating a pop song if it applies. Everyone seems comfortable crediting Lennon and McCartney with their various Beatles songs, for example, but were they doing all the things you describe? Did they do more to create those songs than, say, Taylor Swift does for hers? It's not obvious to me that it's the case.
Yes, they did. George Martin was an arranger, not a co-writer. Max Martin is a co-writer.
If you gave Lennon and McCartney a couple of guitars, a few days of studio time, a good mood, and no other help you'd probably get a hit. Or at least an interesting song.
If you gave Taylor Swift the same you'd get a demo, maybe. You might get an unassisted hit, but the odds are much lower.
Charli XCX - even more so. Give her a laptop and microphone and some plugins and no producer, and I doubt you'd get much.
Not to say that what she and Dua Lipa do is easy. But they're fundamentally performers and brands for a music production operation.
Creative agency isn't a binary. It's on a spectrum. Some people have very little. Some have a lot. Some have taste that defines the product, even though they're mostly curating other people's work.
Michael Jackson was notorious for this. He was a phenomenal dancer, an ok vocalist, not much of a practical musician. But he had a strong sense of what he wanted, and he had a theatricality that pulled the whole thing together.
Charli XCX is a version of that. I don't think her appeal is as strong or as universal, and I doubt she has as much agency as Jackson did. But it's the same idea - shape, curate, perform.
Yes, it's absolutely the case for Lennon and McCartney, since they didn't give rough ideas to George Martin to fill in; they specifically wrote the exact melodies for half the instruments involved and exactly how to play them.
You could argue that Harrison and Starr always deserved some of the writing credit, since they often determined their parts, and I wouldn't actually disagree with that -- though Lennon and McCartney were kinda control freaks, so I'm not sure how much leeway was actually given. When they started bringing in extra instruments, again, there is arguably some extra credit to be given to Martin and others, but Lennon and McCartney were still strongly directing what was to be played.
For what it's worth -- and this is going to get me hated even more than my popstar-skepticism -- I don't really like the Beatles that much. But it's transparent that they did more than Taylor Swift because they were specifically and precisely writing the melodies for the instruments being played.
Charli XCX is diverse and experimental enough that my first instinct would be to assume she’s rather intelligent. For example, her collaboration in the PC Music scene comes off rather nerdy and eccentric actually, not exactly pop. And her lyrics usually have more to it than meets the ear, e.g. sometimes intentionally being a commentary on the party persona keeping her distracted from worse things. “I hate the silence (uh oh), that's why the music's always loud”
Of course, that isn’t a shallow opinion so perhaps someone unfamiliar to her would think otherwise
Does she write her own lyrics? Or does someone else write those for her?
I’m not saying she is or isn’t intelligent, and either way she clearly is talented in some area of music, just wondering if she is a singer or singer/songwriter :)
> There is a weird assumption people make that somebody as successful as Charli XCX isn't smart because her persona is "I like cocaine and partying," and then are surprised when she can express herself like this.
after all, it takes a smart guy to play dumb. artists do portray a persona, or are encouraged by labels. at the same time we cannot blame others for buying it or making their own assumptions.
from first look about the book club podcast, it seems great that one reads a book and gets to talk directly with its author.
> There is a weird assumption people make that somebody as successful as Charli XCX isn't smart because her persona is "I like cocaine and partying,"
Considering cocaine is both illegal and has an obviously unethical supply chain, you'd think someone would try, you know, prosecuting her or something.
If she's prosecuted before a long queue of others, we'd be entitled to suggest the law is not being applied equally. Start a little higher up the food chain with the politicians.
In a lot of places drug enforcement is being deprioritized, for good reason. Of course then you run into all the problems with only enforcing against people someone doesn't like.
Well, depending on your ethnicity of course. In Singapore I was just told off for a small bag with maybe a gram of weed left in my pocket after flying in from Amsterdam, they did not seem particularly interested in the situation but stressed that it should never happen again.
I’d be shocked if the airport experience at Bali was really different, although they would probably want a bribe from you.
I wonder if I'm missing some sarcasm, but I feel I need to clarify that "I like cocaine and partying" is her _persona_, it isn't necessarily true. It's largely marketing. I feel this was the main point of the article, lol.
Making music at any professional level is extremely hard work. Touring and dancing and hosting shows is even harder. It requires a substantial intellectual capacity and stamina to achieve. You either have these things yourself, or you are propped up entirely by others who have them and are invested in you for money's sake. Given Charli XCX's background, it's not actually surprising that she, in fact, has all the talent, skill, and intellect required to do this stuff herself.
Editing to add: Another place to look to learn that people with this skillset often have very very deep inner lives is Dua Lipa's book club podcast (https://www.service95.com/tag/book-club). As someone who used to run these kinds of in-depth interviews, I can say, she is damn good at it.