Charli XCX

• 1. Introduction

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  Charli XCX once drew about 37,000 RSVPs to a single club set in Brooklyn, and only 400 of those people were allowed inside. The set was called PARTYGIRL, and it took place on the 22nd of February 2024. It was her second Boiler Room set since 2020, and the RSVP total was the largest in the history of the series. She used the night to tease songs from an album that had not yet come out. The woman behind the name is the British singer and songwriter Charlotte Emma Aitchison. How did a teenager who uploaded demos to Myspace end up here? Why did her first enormous hits carry other people's names beside hers? What happened when she scrapped an entire album and started over? And what turned one record, released in 2024, into something that people treated as a whole season?

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• 2. Two Half-Lives

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  Charlotte Emma Aitchison was born in Cambridge on the 2nd of August 1992. She was the only child of Shameera, a nurse and flight attendant, and Jon Aitchison, an entrepreneur and talent agent. Her mother was born in Uganda into a Muslim family of Gujarati Indian descent. The family moved to England after the Idi Amin regime expelled them. Her father is Scottish.

  She grew up in Start Hill, Essex, and spent weekends with her maternal grandparents in Crawley, West Sussex. Her school was Bishop's Stortford College in Hertfordshire. At one point she lived briefly with a friend in Joensuu, Finland, and she has called that stay a "frightening experience."

  School itself was the harder part. She has described herself as a "half-Indian girl with frizzy hair" among mostly white classmates. She says she was bullied and discriminated against because of her Indian heritage.

  In 2024 she gave Vogue Singapore a fuller picture of that divide. Visits to her mother's family meant her nani and bappa cooking while Bollywood films played and everyone spoke Gujarati. Then she went home to a largely white world. "I grew up in two half-lives, I suppose," she said. She added, "I never quite felt like I fit into either world."

  At some point she answered racist comments about her heritage and about her skin tone being called "dirty." She wrote on Twitter that she was "extremely proud of my Indian heritage." In 2024 that heritage earned formal recognition when Gold House placed her on its A100 list of the most impactful Asian figures. She was the first woman of British Indian origin to be honoured on it.

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• 3. Kiss Charli Kiss

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  The letters XCX began as a screen name on MSN Messenger, and Aitchison reads them as "kiss Charli kiss." When she needed a stage name she had no manager and no better idea, so she kept it. She later told the Grammy Awards she would stick with it and "not pull a Prince," a nod to the singer who swapped his name for a symbol.

  Music came early. She loved the Spice Girls and Britney Spears, and she began writing songs at 14. That year she talked her parents into lending her money to record a first album, titled 14. In early 2008 she started posting its songs, along with many other demos, on her official Myspace page.

  A promoter who ran illegal warehouse raves in East London noticed the page and invited her to perform. Flyers billed her as Charli XCX. The gigs were illicit, yet her parents supported her and went along to several of the raves.

  The album 14 never received a commercial release. In late 2008 she did put out two singles through Orgy Music, "!Franchesckaar!" and the double A-side "Emelline" and "Art Bitch." She now dismisses her music of that period as "gimmicky dance tracks."

  At 18 she moved to London to study fine art at UCL's Slade School of Fine Art, and she left in her second year. In 2010 she signed with Asylum Records, but she has described herself at the time as "lost." She told The Guardian that she hated pop music then and wanted to make bad rap music.

  A trip to Los Angeles to meet producers went nowhere until she met the American producer Ariel Rechtshaid. In a two-hour session they wrote "Stay Away," and she says that was when things started to come together. Early in 2011 she also appeared on the Alex Metric single "End of the World."

  In May and November 2011 she released "Stay Away" and "Nuclear Seasons." Pitchfork named each a "Best New Track." "Stay Away" even landed on the site's list of the best tracks of 2011.

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• 4. Hits Written for Others

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  Patrik Berger, a Swedish producer, sent her two beats, and she wrote a song for each almost at once. One became "You're the One." The other became "I Love It." She felt she could not fit "I Love It" to her own sound, so she did not release it herself.

  In 2012 the Swedish duo Icona Pop re-recorded the song and released it with her vocals as a featured guest. It reached number one in the UK, which made it her first UK number one. In 2013 it climbed to number seven on the Billboard Hot 100.

  True Romance, her debut album, came out on the 12th of April 2013 and did not repeat that success. It peaked at number 85 on the UK Albums Chart and number five on the US Billboard Top Heatseekers. Critics were kinder than buyers. It scored 76 out of 100 on Metacritic, which signals generally favorable reviews.

  In early 2014 she was featured on the Australian rapper Iggy Azalea's single "Fancy." It topped the Billboard Hot 100 and became the first US number one for both artists. It also became her most streamed song.

  Songwriting work piled up around it. She has credits on Azalea's "Beg for It," on Ryn Weaver's debut single "OctaHate," and on material for Sky Ferreira, Neon Jungle, Rihanna and Gwen Stefani. Later credits include Selena Gomez's "Same Old Love" in 2015, Will.i.am's "Boys & Girls" in 2016, and Blondie's "Tonight" in 2017. "Señorita," by Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello, followed in 2019. Sigala and Rita Ora's "You for Me" came in 2021, and Katseye's "Gabriela" in 2025.

  In mid-2014 she contributed "Boom Clap" to the soundtrack of the film The Fault in Our Stars. It peaked at number eight on the Billboard Hot 100 and number six in the UK. It was certified platinum in Australia and became her first solo US top-ten single.

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• 5. Sweden and Sucker

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  In mid-2013 Charli XCX began writing a second album and could not settle on where to make it. Two months earlier she had wanted to record in India. Then she wanted France. "So I feel like nothing is definite," she admitted.

  Frustrated with the music industry, she went to Sweden instead and cut herself off from her record label. Working with Patrik Berger, she made a punk-inspired album in about a month. She remembered the method as spontaneous, with the first thing out of her mouth becoming the cut on the record. That first batch was eventually scrapped for a more pop-oriented album. One song from it, "Mow That Lawn," debuted live a year later at the Ilosaarirock Festival in Finland.

  The lead single, "SuperLove," arrived in late 2013 and reached number 62 on the UK Singles Chart. It was her first solo entry there. It was later cut from the album anyway.

  Other writers filled out the sessions. She worked with Rivers Cuomo, the frontman of Weezer, and with Rostam Batmanglij of Vampire Weekend. The production duo Stargate and the producer John Hill also took part. A session with Dr. Luke, she said, was not for her.

  She told DIY magazine that she wrote the record for girls and wanted them to feel a sense of empowerment. The Hives, Weezer, the Ramones and 1960s yé-yé music all shaped the sound. In August 2014 she announced the lead single, "Break the Rules." She said it came after she had emerged from her punk phase and translated it into something more pop.

  The album, Sucker, was pushed back because "Boom Clap" was doing so well. It was released in December 2014. It debuted at number 28 on the US Billboard 200, her first album on that chart, and at number 15 in the UK. The third single, "Doing It," with Rita Ora, arrived in February and peaked at number eight on the UK Singles Chart.

  One Sucker song, "Body of My Own," was written as a feminist statement. She considers herself a feminist and appeared in The F Word and Me, a documentary about gender equality that premiered on BBC Three in 2015. That year the video for "Famous," released on the 23rd of March 2015, was ranked fifth by Time and nineteenth by Pitchfork among the year's best pop videos. She also opened the European leg of Katy Perry's Prismatic World Tour.

  In July and August 2015 she co-headlined a US tour with Bleachers. On the 21st of August she announced that, for personal reasons, a planned second leg would not go ahead.

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• 6. PC Music Years

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  In October 2015 Charli XCX premiered "Vroom Vroom" on the Beats 1 Radio Show and said it would be the first song from her next studio album. Months earlier she had called that record the most pop and most electronic thing she had ever made.

  On the 23rd of February 2016 she announced Vroom Vroom Recordings, an experimental pop label, and an EP of the same name due three days later. The producer Sophie made most of it as a teaser for the album. She also began hosting her own Beats 1 show, The Candy Shop. The EP marked a sharp shift in tone from Sucker, and reviews were divided.

  In July 2016 the British producer A. G. Cook, founder of the label PC Music, signed on as her creative director. The lead single from her third album, "After the Afterparty," followed on the 28th of October. It reached number 29 in the UK and was certified gold by the BPI.

  On the 10th of March 2017 she released the mixtape Number 1 Angel. Its guest list was entirely female and included MØ, Raye, Starrah, Uffie, Abra and Cupcakke. Production came largely from PC Music artists such as A. G. Cook, EasyFun and Sophie. In July 2017 she released "Boys," with a self-directed video that featured male celebrities including Joe Jonas and Brendon Urie.

  Then the planned third album fell apart. Most of it leaked in 2017, and the remaining tracks leaked the following year. The leaks led to the cancellation of the release, and she decided to make an entirely new third album.

  The mixtape Pop 2 came out on the 15th of December 2017. Its collaborators included Carly Rae Jepsen, Tove Lo, Caroline Polachek and Kim Petras. In May 2018 she began opening for Taylor Swift on the Reputation Stadium Tour, alongside Camila Cabello.

  The replacement album was Charli, and it began with "1999," a duet with Troye Sivan released on the 5th of October 2018. The single reached number 13 in the UK and became her tenth top-40 single. Its video was packed with references to 1990s pop culture. Charli itself arrived on the 13th of September 2019 through Asylum and Atlantic Records. Lizzo joined her on "Blame It on Your Love." She also recorded "Dream Glow" with Jin, Jimin and Jungkook of BTS for the soundtrack of the game BTS World.

  In April 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, she announced How I'm Feeling Now. She wrote and recorded it in just six weeks of lockdown. Fans on Instagram voted on lyric variations, single covers and sound samples, and the most popular choice became the official release. The album came out on the 15th of May 2020. Kitty Empire of The Guardian called it "truly a work of its time." The next album would be her last for Atlantic Records.

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• 7. Colour and Company

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  "I see music in colours," Charli XCX has said, describing sound-to-colour synaesthesia. She loves music that is black, pink, purple or red. She hates music that is green, yellow or brown.

  Critics have struggled to pin her down with one word. Labels applied to her work include electropop, synth-pop, hyperpop, pop-punk, witch house and experimental pop. Her earliest Myspace demos were called "trashy techno." Her second album was filed under pop punk, and Crash was described as a 1980s-style synth-pop record with hints of Italo disco. She has rejected the hyperpop label on social media, saying she does not identify with music genres.

  Her list of influences is long. Britney Spears was her first big pop icon, and she calls Siouxsie Sioux her hero. She says she learned about performing and drawing a crowd from Taylor Swift. Kanye West inspired her unusual use of Auto-Tune. She has said the best artists are the ones who constantly change, naming Madonna and Bowie, and her dream collaborators include Björk and Kate Bush. Rihanna is her favorite pop girl, and she hopes to write a song for her.

  The 1990s run through her look as well as her sound. She has said the decade to her means the Spice Girls and Britney, and her single "Spicy" interpolates the Spice Girls' "Wannabe." Her fashion style she calls "90s schoolgirl," drawing on Avril Lavigne and the fictional characters Cher Horowitz, Wednesday Addams and Nancy Downs. As a teenager she wore ties to imitate Lavigne. Her live shows carry the mark of the rave scene, and she often performs with guest stars.

  Until 2022 she was in a long-term partnership with Huck Kwong, whom she had dated in 2014 and known since 2012. In 2022 she began publicly dating George Daniel, the drummer of the 1975. They met while working on the No Rome track "Spinning," released on the 4th of March 2021. They collaborated again on Crash, including its title track.

  They became engaged in November 2023. They married at Hackney Town Hall on the 19th of July 2025, with her parents and Daniel's bandmates in attendance. A second wedding followed on the 14th of September 2025 in Scopello, Sicily.

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• 8. Brat Summer

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  Crash, released on the 18th of March 2022, gave Charli XCX her first number-one album in both the UK and Australia. In February 2023 she told British Vogue that she had signed a new recording contract covering her next two albums. She co-headlined the Coachella Festival and contributed to three film soundtracks. "Speed Drive," from Barbie, entered the UK chart at number nine and the Billboard Hot 100 at number 73. She also co-composed the score for the film Bottoms with Leo Birenberg.

  Brat arrived after "Von Dutch" on the 29th of February 2024 and "360" on the 10th of May. The album came out on the 7th of June 2024. It earned a Metacritic score of 95, the highest of any album released that year and among the twenty highest-rated albums of all time. Its lime-green cover became a viral internet trend, and the Kamala Harris 2024 presidential campaign used the look. Billboard and Rolling Stone were among the publications that named it the best album of 2024.

  Three days later came a deluxe edition, Brat and It's the Same but There's Three More Songs So It's Not. It carried "Guess," and a remix with Billie Eilish debuted atop the UK Singles Chart. That gave Charli XCX her second UK number one, a decade after "I Love It." "Apple" became a single after it went viral on TikTok. On the 11th of October 2024 she released the remix album Brat and It's Completely Different but Also Still Brat. Its guests included Ariana Grande, Kesha, Bon Iver, Lorde and Troye Sivan.

  Brat and its songs won three Grammy Awards: Best Dance Pop Recording for "Von Dutch," Best Dance/Electronic Album, and Best Recording Package. She also received the ASCAP Global Impact Award in 2024. In October she became US ambassador for Valentino Beauty. On the 16th of November she hosted Saturday Night Live and performed as its musical guest. The Financial Times named her one of the most influential women of 2024.

  The cultural wave, dubbed Brat Summer, inspired the film The Moment, directed by Aidan Zamiri. She co-produced it through her company Studio365 and starred in it as herself. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on the 23rd of January 2026, with a UK release on the 20th of February.

  Her older songs found new life too. "Party 4 U" resurged on TikTok in early 2025, and its video arrived on the 15th of May 2025, the fifth anniversary of How I'm Feeling Now. On the 10th of November 2025 she released "House" with John Cale of the Velvet Underground. It led her soundtrack album for Emerald Fennell's film Wuthering Heights, based on Emily Brontë's novel. In June 2026 she announced a new album, Music, Fashion, Film, scheduled for the 24th of July.

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