11. Charli XCXSucker
I could have done a Baker’s Dozen of the 2000s easily. There was a documentary on terrestrial TV about Charli touring America, this album was just coming out, I came across it by accident. I thought she was interesting, and that they were good songs. I bought the album and then left it in a kitchen cupboard for ages, and then eventually I knew it was time to listen to it. To me, it’s a beautiful pop punk thing. You know that feeling when you love a singer, their voice does something to you, it’s the timbre of the voice, it speaks to me in a certain way, when that happens you can’t see why everyone doesn’t love it! She really does speak to me out of all the modern female singers from the last ten years, say. I like all her records, but this one especially. I want to stick up for this one, because in an interview with her, the journalist said they didn’t like it, and she ended up agreeing with them, and I thought that was terrible, to end up dismissing her own album. I wanted to say, ‘No Charli, it’s a brilliant record!’
I like pop punk like Shampoo. It’s a genre that doesn’t get boring for me, that backdrop of guitars and girls voices. Charli is also about getting to the top, she’s not ashamed of ambition, which, in the scene I was involved in, people were… they didn’t want to admit that… there was such a lack of ambition, it was very dispiriting. I love ‘Red Balloon’, and the quieter songs, and she’s also on Asylum, one of the biggest labels in the world. I like the artwork, everything, and that guy Ariel Pink is on it, that is not a selling point for me, but he plays synthesiser on it. She also hooks up with interesting producers.
