Raw Pop at Five in the Morning

I was writing about Charli XCX before most people had a take on her. True Romance came out in 2013 and it was dark, restless, synth-driven in ways that felt genuinely strange for a pop debut—the kind of record that makes you feel like you found something before the algorithm decided you should. Then she wrote I Love It for Icona Pop, which was unavoidable that summer in the best possible way, and then Fancy with Iggy Azalea hit number one in the US and suddenly everyone had an opinion about Charlotte Emma Aitchison.

I’ve never written a song to seem cool or whatever, she’s said. Everything comes straight from my head. I’d call it Raw Pop. That’s what I am onstage too—nothing polished. Soft music bores me. That means something now, when the default mode for most pop is mumbling over mild beats while critics call it depth.

The new song is 5 In The Morning, and there’s nothing left of the slightly hesitant girl who needed time to grow into the phenomenon she was becoming. She’s fully here. The only open question is whether the mainstream swallows her whole or she stays sharp enough to cut her way back out.