The new one from Charli XCX is entertaining, but also fleeting and sometimes interchangeable ★★★☆☆

One of the most remarkable ‘corona albums’ was How I’m Feeling Now (2020) by Charli XCX: Recorded in six weeks, alone. In the Los Angeles home of the English pop star whose real name is Charlotte Aitchison.

Now she’s back as we knew her, with solidly produced electro-pop. In interviews, she said that this is her last album for Warner Records, and her last mainstream pop album.

crash is indeed a typical mainstream: entertaining, often catchy, but also with the fleeting filler that you imagine it to be.

At her best moments, in the eighties pop winking good ones or Yuck Charli XCX is stubborn, she shows a feeling for an irresistible hook and the music is brimming with cleverness.

At bad times, all that is hard to find and her doll is interchangeable. Especially then (in Constant Repeat or Twice) you realize that that lockdown record from two years ago in its hasty sketchiness was actually more fun.

May 28 she will come to TivoliVredenburg, Utrecht. Curious how she will express her contractual independence afterwards.