Charli XCX is not just a pop star; she is a curator of the future. While her contemporaries often follow trends, Charli is the one who starts them—often years before the radio is ready for it. Together with the late producer SOPHIE and the A.G. Cook collective, she invented a sound that sounds like bubblegum pop mixed with metal: sharp, synthetic, and unapologetically loud. Whether she is singing about parties, anxiety, or fast cars, she always does it with the accelerator pressed firmly to the floor.
10. 1999 (with Troye Sivan)
Nostalgia is an easy trap, but Charli and Troye Sivan turn it into an art form. This is a love letter to the era of Britney, The Matrix, and CD players, wrapped in a production so slick you almost slide right off it. The beat, produced by Max Martin, is pure pop mathematics. It is not meant ironically; it is a sincere craving for a time when everything (and pop music) seemed simpler.
9. Unlock It (Lock It) (feat. Kim Petras and Jay Park)
This song had a modest release on the 2017 mixtape Pop 2, but gained a second life years later via TikTok. And rightly so. The production glitters and bubbles like champagne. The chorus (“Lock it, lock it, unlock it”) is hypnotic in its repetition. With guest appearances by Kim Petras and Jay Park, this feels like an international summit of the “cool kids.” It is the textbook example of how Charli predicted the future of pop music: fast, digital, and irresistible.
8. Boys
How do you make a hit with almost nothing? “Boys” is a masterclass in minimalism. A simple beat, a sample of the coin sound from Super Mario, and lyrics that are essentially about nothing but daydreaming about boys. The brilliant music video, which she directed herself and in which dozens of famous men pose as objects of desire (“female gaze”), made the statement complete. It is lazy, it is catchy, and it is brilliant in its simplicity.
7. Boom Clap
For the general public, this remains the Charli song. Written for The Fault in Our Stars, this 80s-inspired synth-pop is at its most romantic. Where her later work often grinds and creaks, this track is pure and innocent. The drums sound massive and the melody is designed for waving along in stadiums. It proves that she can be the perfect mainstream pop star if she wants to be—she just usually chooses not to.
6. Gone (with Christine and the Queens)
Together with Chris (from Christine and the Queens), she sings about social anxiety and the feeling that people are looking right through you. The production is nervous and tight, with an industrial beat that completely derails at the end. It is a rare moment of pure vulnerability, wrapped in a beat that forces you to dance your worries away.
5. I Love It (with Icona Pop)
Technically an Icona Pop song, but Charli wrote it in half an hour and gave it away. Her stamp is on every second. “I crashed my car into the bridge, I don’t care!” This is the punk spirit in an electropop jacket. It is loud, bratty (long before that was an album title), and bursting with nihilistic energy. This track defined the summer of 2012 and put Charli on the map as a songwriter who knows exactly how to make a generation jump.
4. 360
The anthem of the Brat summer. This song sounds like it was made in a laboratory for “it-girls.” The beat is dry and minimalist, the lyrics are full of self-confidence (“I’m everywhere, I’m so Julia”), and the atmosphere is ice-cold. It deals with influence, internet culture, and the art of being an icon. Charli doesn’t sound like she’s trying her best here; she sounds like she’s simply observing how the world turns around her.
3. Track 10
The closer of Pop 2 is a deconstructed ballad that breaks all the rules of songwriting. The vocals are distorted, the rhythms stumble over each other, and yet there is a beautiful, emotional melody buried underneath (which she later reused for the smoother single “Blame It On Your Love”). “Track 10” is hyperpop in its purest, most artistic form: chaos that feels like a warm embrace.
2. Von dutch
Aggressive, loud, and delightfully arrogant. “Von dutch” is Charli laughing straight in the face of her critics and obsessive fans. The synthesizer sounds like a jet plane taking off and the beat is ruthless. “I’m just living that life, Von dutch, cult classic but I still pop.” It is a song that doesn’t ask for attention, but demands it.
1. Vroom Vroom
When Charli went into the studio with SOPHIE, modern pop music was reset. The first time you hear this, you think your speakers are broken. The sound of breaking metal, the extreme silences, the “cute” rap style against dark beats; it was incomprehensible to the mainstream in 2016, but visionary for the underground. “Let’s ride.” This is the manifesto of Charli XCX. Without “Vroom Vroom” there is no hyperpop, no Brat, and no future.
