Album Review: Charli XCX, True Romance

It’s 2013, and it’s time to face the fact that deep down, everyone’s got a hipster streak when it comes to listening tastes. We’re a bunch of jaded post-modernists–obsessed with avoiding cliché, experts at calling out the shortcomings of others’ handiwork. Bubblegum pop? Boy bands? What kind of hack would ever support this drivel?

But when we take a look at today’s critically acclaimed pop, we end up stumbling on a sad, inconvenient irony: As far as structure is concerned, we’re on the same page as the Backstreet Boys circa “I Want it That Way.” Pop is the same rigid, monolithic format it’s always been, and regardless of what they do with it, not Passion Pit or Grimes, Chairlift or Zola Jesus, are going to do anything to change that.

Charli XCX, Great Britain’s 20-year-old indietronica wunderkind, has a strong grasp on this concept. And on True Romance, her second studio album, she ditches the pressure of potential online callers-out, wearing hackneyed pop tropes on her sleeve like t.A.T.u. pins on torn denim. Her music is synth-based ecstasy; unapologetically reanimating the sounds of pop acts revered and scorned alike.

This record’s influences are all over the place, and it’s almost dizzying the pace at which Charli can flip-flop a witch house track into a four-on-the-floor club banger. “Take My Hand,” True Romance’s bouncy third track, somehow invokes ‘90s Garbage, Heaven-era DJ Sammy, Robyn, and Venga Boys in equal measure. And while a lot of the sounds being recalled here are practically laughable when taken on their own, Charli’s pure maximalist approach to each song is almost overwhelming in scope. By channeling so many different pieces from so many different places, there comes a point where as a listener, it’s useless to keep drawing connections. True Romance is its own beast, avoiding the “Who does it sound like” question by rendering it pointless to answer.

The fact that this album isn’t a complete clusterfuck is a huge testament to Charli’s clout as a songwriter and performer. With impressive confidence, True Romance manages the herculean feat of staying both catchy and unpredictable. At the start of “Set Me Free – Feel My Pain,” Charli’s a veritable Shirley Manson, moping over the synth drone and industrial backbeat with some effective vocal dramatics. But then that chorus rolls around, and Charli pulls back, fading into a headvoice and letting the synths do the talking. “You gotta set me free,” she pleads airily, and it’s hard to remember that just a few seconds ago she had us plodding around in the mud.

Charli XCX is exceptionally good at blurring lines, and True Romance never goes all-in on one set of sounds or dispositions. While the album undoubtedly touches on aspects of “darker” synth-based artists like Salem and Purity Ring, that heaviness never becomes a defining characteristic. On “You – Ha Ha Ha,” for instance, Charli XCX’s Gold Panda sample makes the track glitter and gleam, even as she delivers a devastating blow: “You, you lied / I was right all along.”

Lyrically, the album isn’t treading new grounds, as song titles like “You’re the One,” “How Can I,” and “So Far Away” pretty much reveal the general emotional crux behind each track. But even though you know pretty much exactly what to expect when going into a song called “Stay Away,” it’s easy to get wrapped up in the song’s melody, and it amplifies Charli as she pleads, “I never needed anyone but now that you are gone, stay away.”

It’s not full of sweeping statements or piercing insight, but True Romance is rife with character. By recalling familiar pop elements and simultaneously avoiding schtick, Charli XCX completely throws comparative criticism out the window. This is the perfect setting for good pop, and True Romance is a prime example of what the genre can still offer to a generation jaded by top 40 radio stations and terrified of internet backlash. “You were old school, I was on the new shit,” Charli reminisces on “You – Ha Ha Ha.” Now she’s on both.

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Josh Calixto

Josh has always been a dedicated music fan, but only started to explore deeper artists as a journalism student at Northwestern University. With no favorite genre and much love for musicians including The Sundays, Curren$y, Colin Stetson, and The Blood Brothers, he prides himself on a wide-ranging musical taste and willingness to listen to just about anything. Right now, Josh is particularly into female-fronted dreampop, energetic psych-rock, and trap music.