Internet platforms aren't genres, and maybe it's time to call a moratorium on treating them like they are. In 2006, when Charlotte Aitchison turned 14, she started recording a later-shelved album she has more recently disowned as "fucking terrible MySpace music." Now, almost seven years later, her proper debut album as Charli XCX can hardly avoid comparisons to Tumblr, from fans and detractors alike.
A simple misreading of the UK singer and songwriter's biggest hit might explain this focus on technology-based shorthand. Swedish electro-pop duo Icona Pop's 2012 global smash "I Love It", co-written by Charli XCX but not on True Romance, emphasizes a generational divide: "You're from the 70s/ And I'm a 90s bitch." Sure, Aitchison was born in 1992, but her use of social-media formats also long frequented by droves of people born in the 1970s isn't exactly remarkable in 2013. As that catchy kiss-off's Republica-on-EDM wattage illuminates, Charli XCX is a would-be 90s pop star, too. And in only the best sense.
True Romance shares its title with an unbelievably well-cast 1993 movie written by Quentin Tarantino, who was reassembling cultural detritus way before mash-ups and microblogging. Charli XCX's approach to pop is similarly postmodern (how 90s does that sound?), pulling from moody 80s synth-pop, sassy turn-of-the-millennium girl groups, and state-of-the-art contemporary producers to create something distinctive and immediately memorable. She clearly understands the internet, having shared two original mixtapes and two influences mixtapes before her official full-length, but this carefully pruned set is no data dump. And there you'll see a glimmer of True Romance's most throwback aspect: its evident pop ambition, an overriding sense of an imagined mass audience for music that's radio-ready yet outsider-friendly. It's almost like Napster-- and the filler-crammed album sales model that preceded it-- never happened.
In fact, by the time Charli XCX was a teenage electro-house devotee, illegal file-sharing's early free-for-all had already given way to iTunes and other legal download services. Robyn had already released her self-titled comeback album. So it might be only natural that Charli XCX would keep the pre-bubble faith that people will pay for emotionally direct, bubblegum-catchy, yet stubbornly left-of-center songs about falling in and out of love. But the generous hooks on the previously released singles here, such as the gospel-kissed prechorus of the yearning "Stay Away" or the Santigold-savvy lilt of love-and-the-bomb brooder "Nuclear Seasons", are extraordinarily welcome just the same. Even better are newer singles such as the gorgeously bitter "You (Ha Ha Ha)", which inhabits its cloud-rappy Gold Panda sample like they were made for each other, and the almost-as-gorgeously blissful "What I Like", which recounts a still-young relationship with the cheeky frankness of Lily Allen or the Streets, and the sing-songy near-rapping of the Spice Girls.
The several songs on True Romance that hadn't previously surfaced in videos or other releases aren't quite as strong, but they're effective enough to suggest Charli XCX's best work might still be ahead of her. The Todd Rundgren-sampling "So Far Away", with the sun-dappled lushness of the Avalanches, is a clear highlight; Charli XCX's vocals are usually plain-spoken, but the anguished break-up plea "Set Me Free" proves she can reach for Jessie Ware–like dramatics when appropriate. The pitch-shifting "no one is forever" intro added at the start of opener "Nuclear Seasons" probably should've been given its own track-- and later on the album it is, when the same backing vocal forms the base of the cloudy, broken-hearted "Grins". Elsewhere, the haunted confession "How Can I", while solid enough, is a reminder that Charli XCX's lyrics so far tend to fall relatively flat; when, on swooning finale "Lock You Up", she sings, "It hits me like a ton of bricks," she leaves the cliché untweaked.
And then there's "Cloud Aura", a lovelorn, engagingly laid-back bit of groove that lets Grimes' "Genesis" video co-star Brooke Candy rap horribly about Chris Brown. Candy's guest verse previously appeared on 2012's uneven Super Ultra mixtape, and it was near-universally panned. It isn't any better now. But in an era when too many up-and-comers are all too eager to please, this stubborn refusal to back down displays another quality in short supply: genuine irreverence. The songwriting and production credits on True Romance include Usher's "Climax" co-conspirator Ariel Rechtshaid and "I Love It" collaborator Patrick Berger, among others, who also share some credit (and blame). But like 90s pop stars turned 10s pop sophisticates Justin Timberlake and Beyoncé, Charli XCX stamps her personality across the entire project, and True Romance suggests she'll be worth following for a while. On Tumblr, Instagram, and whatever comes next, sure, but musically most of all.
