British singer and songwriter Charlotte Emma Aitchison professionally known as Charli XCX will be releasing her fifth studio album titled CRASH this month. This is her last album with Atlantic Records after being signed there for eleven years.
The release date for the album is March 18 and at the time of writing, the album currently consists of three singles. The first and lead single is “Good Ones”, which was released on the 2nd of September 2021. The single was announced a month before it was released.
Charli also mentioned that “This song is essentially about always kind of running away from people who are good for you and running towards the people who are dangerous, you know? Kind of going for bad people and maybe it’s because they’re a bit more fun and exciting… but also bad for you. And I think that’s something that everyone’s sort of been through at some point, maybe… I hope it’s not just me“.
The second single of the album is titled “New Shapes”. The single was released on the 4th of November 2021 and features her friends and previous collaborators, Caroline Polachek and Christine And The Queens.
Caroline Polachek was also featured on Charli XCX’s 2017 track “Tears”, which they have also performed live together. Meanwhile Christine and the Queens appeared on the track “Gone”, which is the lead single to Charli’s 2019 self-titled album. And that’s not all, they also shot the track’s music video together.
The third single of the album is “Beg For You”, which was released on the 27th of January 2022. The single contains samples of “Don’t Cry” by Milk Inc and “Cry For You” by September. The single also features Japanese British singer and songwriter Rina Sawayama.
Charli and Rina had previously recorded a song for Charli’s 2019 self-titled album, but it ended up being scrapped. Speaking about the song, Charli said, “This collaboration was a long time coming for us. We’d been speaking on & off for quite a few years about the idea of doing something together and we did actually try a demo a few years ago.
This song came about that I got sent a rough sketch of the chorus. I remember I was driving in the car listening to it, and it made me feel extremely nostalgic but also euphoric and there’s that garage kind of vibe. The sample is something that I feel my fans really connect with, that kind of eurodance-pop thing.
I had a brainwave of like ‘I had to send this to Rina because I feel this could be the one’. It was, because when Rina sent back her vocals I was like ‘Oh my god, they’re going to have a meltdown!’“.
Janet Jackson, Black Eyed Peas, Charlie Puth, Cyndi Lauper and Rick James are some of the the inspirations behind the album. Charli also describes the album as a “Janet Album”
She said about the record, “I’ve always made pop music, but I think the past few projects I’ve definitely leaned into the more experimental end of that. This record, however, it’s definitely more classic; I would say it’s very ‘80s-inspired. I’ve been listening to a lot of Prince, a lot of Janet Jackson, I’ve been doing dance routines and just basically being a main pop girl which is fun“.
Charli describes the album as an evil era. She also tweeted, “The crash era is very emotionally chaotic tbh“. And we, as Charli’s Angels cannot wait for the album to be released.
Charli XCX’s upcoming CRASH album arrives on March 18, pre-order it here.
Words by Zethembe Maseko
