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Charli XCX isn't your regular popstar. For those who know her on a surface level, she's the Boom Clap singer who made it big on the hook of Iggy Azalea's Fancy. The stats will tell you she's hasn't had a huge hit yet. Her die hard fans will tell you a very different story and they're right.
"I might not be the biggest, but I’m definitely one of the best," she proclaimed during her Pop2 show in Paris which just about sums up the position she's in right now. Last year, she threw out the pop rule book. Instead of edging towards her long-awaited third album, she dropped two mixtapes, recruiting a stellar cast of collaborators stemming from the PC Music crew and morphed into the popstar you get the feeling she always wanted to be.
Her London Pop2 show feels like a celebration of this. The sold out Shoreditch crowd were die-hards, just as eager to singalong to unreleased leaks as they are to the 'big' songs like Boys. It was only the third time she'd performed the show, having only given the honour to New York and LA previously and she seemed just as excited as everyone else. For the past few months, she's been living a Hannah Montana-esque pop life, performing a vastly different set to arenas on the Taylor Swift world tour. In London, she got to give us her ideal show and it was revolutionary.
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The sounds, provided mostly by A.G. Cook and SOPHIE, are weird, wonky and even jarring at points but Charli pairs them with big hooks. From the magic carpet ride of Unlock It to the euphoric pop of Femmebot, the whole thing felt like a technicolour rave. There were elements appropriated from '90s rave culture and also moments that felt truly futuristic like the disintegrating beat of the heartbreaking Lucky.
Charli looked elated and for good reason. The crowd was bonkers from start to finish, lapping up every moment, even the most recent 5 In The Morning which trades euphoria for steely, hard-hitting beats. While that song was an all eyes on Charli moment, the Pop2 show isn't about putting her in the spotlight. It's just as much about the collaborators and the audience. It's a party after all.
She brought Rina Sawayama out to fill Carly Rae Jepsen's shoes on Backseat, proving that she's also in pop's future. Meanwhile, RAYE appeared for Dreamer, Tommy Cash did Delicious and Hannah Diamond stole the show on Paradise. At one point Charli gives the stage to SOPHIE to perform Whole New World off his excellent new album OIL OF EVERY PEARL'S UN-INSIDES. Pop2 is a celebration of everything that pushes the boundaries and Charli is happy to act as a hypeman when she needs to.
Photo by Joseph Okpako/WireImage
The most telling sign that this show is in the future is the ending. Charli has hits, big hits and yet she wheels none of them out to finish on. Instead, she drops two unreleased cuts No Angel and Girls Night Out. She's performed these a few times and live version are hanging around on YouTube but to have a whole crowd singing along like they did is impressive. While most head for the bathroom when artists perform new songs, Charli fans head to dancefloor. Pop2 is a unique, celebratory experience. It felt like a victory lap for Charli. She's finally living out her vision of what pop music should be. These songs may not be number one on the charts but as she said, she's not the biggest but she's definitely one of the best.
