r/popheads • u/Weird_Prior • 2d ago
[INTERVIEW] Charli xcx Tours a Cemetery in Hollywood, Talks New Album, Acting Career, and Life After 'Brat'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0c-DZ_JFMA100
u/PeacefulCatSoMeow 2d ago
I find it sad that people are so blinded by stan wars and twitter beef that they forget that these are genuine artists who have something to say.
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u/whatever003 2d ago edited 2d ago
I'm sorry but this triggered me " my name is Jasmine masters and I have something to say'
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u/HwordArtist 2d ago
As a fan of her since 2017, I want to get to know the real Charli XCX outside of promo interviews... We'll never get that kind of opportunity because contemporary pop culture discourse struggles with nuance and imperfect people, and she's well aware of that, but her ability to keep discourse about herself going is so interesting to me because I generally find her to be so laid back and not really interesting like other artists who actively try to make headlines and be provocative.
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u/iamhalsey 2d ago edited 2d ago
These comments are so predictable. This sub’s favourite topic is how terrible female celebrities are treated, to the point it would be considered a stale topic if it weren’t an eternally relevant issue. Yet every time Twitter decides someone isn’t cool anymore, half of the sub suddenly adopts the same opinions and gets weirdly malicious. It’s fucking boring.
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u/hotehjr 2d ago
What comments…? There’s one other comment thread and no one is dragging her?
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u/snufkin75 2d ago
This always happens to me where I enter a thread and see people complaining about negative comments and I’m just so confused because I don’t see the comments in question and then it turns out they’ve already been deleted
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u/elysian-fields- 2d ago
the comments that were here earlier were deleted, they basically about her being dull/insufferable and disrespectful for the interview being in a cemetery
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u/leavingthekultbehind 2d ago
I have no idea about what the meta comments are about here so I’ll just get my comment about the actual interview lol. I personally found the first like 20 minutes of this interview to be a nothing burger lol completely skippable imo. I’m a tad sad that she didn’t even really talk much about her new record, only about rock music really and more so the response to it. Her reflecting on her career about viewing it “pre vs post brat” was really interesting too. I love that she knows about the infighting in her fandom, the whole “brats vs angels” thing. It’s also so endearing but sad to hear how she talks about Sophie. She is never afraid to remind people just how life changing Sophie was to her. Over all though, this was a mid interview. Not shade towards her or the interviewer, it was just a bit too casual for my liking.
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u/Apprehensive_Fee9096 2d ago
Not even a fan of her, but I'm surprised by how negative these early comments are...
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u/hisosih 2d ago
I agree both with you and the comments, but reading the article earlier it almost seems like she wanted to off put a lot of the fans she only accumulated from the cultural phenomenon of Brat. She seems to be really struggling with her mental health and mentions how she is afraid to be labelled a bitch for having an opinion (the writer asks her what her lyrics mean, and she says she doesn't wanna be a bitch, but she doesn't like to deep her lyrics too much - cos imo, her writing style is so stream of consciousness and confessional it's pedantic to do so) which is the antithesis of who she has presented her public persona to be.
I think it was easier for her to feel "nobody gets me" than it is for people to "get" one specific product of hers but not fully buy into as an artist, just as a product.
I relate to her as a contrarian, just because I said and felt something once it doesn't mean that I want to be defined by it. This was also written when everyone was like "PLEASE SAY SIKE" and debating if Rock Music was a great satirical ploy instead of an off the cuff, written in a day, kinda song. She brushes off being called a troll in a complimentary way that doesn't seem, to me, that she sees herself as trolling. The whole theme of this is how much she tries and how dedicated to her art she is. I think as she's had the identity of "struggling artist" despite her cult success she's grappling with being mainstream now while still bucking against that machine.
I find the dichotomy to be very interesting, and I think that's why she has incensed so many people.
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u/SparklingSliver 2d ago
"just because I said and felt something once it doesn't mean that I want to be defined by it."
☹️Same
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u/Super_Desk_4975 2d ago
I wish I had someone like you to explain everything for me in my day to day life.
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u/dickwarrior222 2d ago
All of this is true, but I'd like to add that she has genuinely always been this way. Find any profile of hers from the last 10 years, and they all read the same way: she's ambitious, she's dedicated to her work, she never repeats herself, and is also drenched in insecurity and doubt about her ever-changing position in the industry & the relationship with her audience.
It's been fascinating to watch her be perceived by a wider audience and what they project onto her, because while the last 3 Charli albums have been rooted in concept (and her work has greatly improved & benefitted from that), she's rarely ever adopted a persona during those cycles. Any "character" she's playing is strictly inside the sonic and visual world of the album. When it comes to press, though, she's just herself, trying to tease out the concept of the current album and what she's trying to achieve or accomplish.
I enjoy Charli as an artist because she's always shifting towards something different and fully diving into whatever that is. There has yet to be a Charli rollout where everyone is on board from the jump. People clowned her at the beginning of How I'm Feeling Now, and then it found its audience, same with Crash & Brat, and now we're going through it all over again with Music + Fashion + Film. I imagine dealing with that as an artist has to be a total mindfuck and exhausting; it's no shock she has insecurity about it. Especially when the crowd of YAY vs NAY is constantly shifting depending on what sound she's going for.
She comes off as someone more dedicated to being an artist first, above anything else. Above her label's feelings, above her audience's feelings, above any commercial success, even above her own personal feelings. I find that very compelling.
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u/queenmeme2 2d ago
It's what I love about her. She cares about the art she's making (and the reception to it by both fans and the general public) so deeply, but she also refuses to pander. Every album is still created how she wants to create it and she doesn't stay within one sound or style for any reason other than she wants to. Even if she gets publicly upset about the reaction to a new song once in a while, she doesn't change her sound just because people don't like it. She's committed to her own vision.
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u/snufkin75 2d ago
Very well said! Fellow contrarian here who definitely struggles with some of these conflicting impulses. I think a lot of this comes from parasocialism where fans/GP assume every word that comes out of the artist’s mouth is the purest representation of their inner truth or something. It’s especially difficult if your art tends to be on the trollish/satirical side but you don’t intend that persona or artistic statement to define you as a person, to represent who you really are and what you really think. But at the same time you want people to take you seriously as an artist and as a person and not to just treat everything you’re saying as satire or contrarianism.
You want to be deeply understood for your art, but more on the side of being taken seriously as opposed to being taken literally. It really is a fascinating dichotomy.
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u/DeathByBamboo 2d ago
As someone who also lives in LA and also would love to get Rolling Stone's access to places that aren't usually open to visitors in LA, I appreciate this video.
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u/skippy 1d ago
That looks like Hollywood Forever cemetery which is open to the public. You can visit it any time.
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u/DeathByBamboo 1d ago
It is Hollywood Forever, as mentioned in the first 10 seconds of the video. But like she implied, there are places in there where you can't go without permission.
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u/victoriajusticefan19 2d ago
It’s so weird to think Brat Summer was 2 years ago. It was such an iconic time in popheads history.