00:00Hi Billboard, I'm Charli XCX, let's spend 24 hours together.
00:19This is Artwords, this is a bookshop that I sometimes come into, it's on a very cute
00:25street by London Fields, and I just like to come here on the weekends when I'm in London.
00:32To be honest, I don't read loads, I won't lie, I'm more of a movie watcher, but I definitely
00:40go through phases where I'm really like on a book, you know.
00:44The book I'm reading at the moment is David Bailey's Autobiography, he is an amazing British
00:52photographer.
00:53I really like reading David Sedaris' books, I love reading Natasha Stagg's books, but
00:59I'm not a big fiction reader to be honest, I like reading about people who exist in the
01:06real world and their stories and how they've, you know, ended up where they are.
01:12I've definitely been on a journey with my, you know, creative process and the music that
01:18I make, and I think, you know, my first record, True Romance, which I think literally like
01:2411 people heard, is one that's really dear to me and I really love it, and I think it's,
01:29in my opinion, stood the test of time, but you know, obviously everyone else will have
01:33their own opinions on that, but after that record I made a much more kind of, I don't
01:38know, like commercial sounding record, which is what I wanted to do at the time.
01:43I think what I was actually going for with Sucker was kind of like what Olivia did with
01:49Sour, like I think that's such a great record, and I wish I'd kind of been able to make it
01:54more like that, but I didn't.
01:56As a woman in the music industry, when you start really young and you're not really like
02:00shown the way, it can be very intimidating and it can be hard to ask for help, it can
02:06be scary to kind of like make a statement or ask what might be deemed as a silly question
02:13out of fear of being ridiculed and laughed at and told that you don't know anything,
02:17when really the only way you learn is by asking and making mistakes, and I think I was able
02:22to sort of learn throughout the process of my first two records how to really kind of
02:27communicate and pull the best out of people, understand different producers and their strengths
02:33and weaknesses, understand my strengths and weaknesses, and I think that set me on the
02:37path to, over the next records that I wrote, be able to really kind of hone my sound and
02:44understand truly what I liked and why it was important to make things that I liked and
02:50how that would only kind of make me a kind of more cohesive artist, I suppose.
02:58So yeah, I think that process from like Vroom Vroom, Number One Angel, Pop 2 onwards, definitely
03:04was able to get me to this place now where I feel more confident than ever in, you know,
03:12the creative decisions that I make.
03:25This is my local cinema in London, it's called The Castle Cinema, they play great movies,
03:32they have really good taste, the bar up here is really cute and really nice.
03:37I watch a lot of movies, like that is kind of where I find a lot of inspiration and where
03:44I kind of get my creative juices flowing, I suppose.
03:49One film that was really, I wouldn't say it was like, you know, super, super, super inspirational
03:55but it did like really light a spark in my mind was Greg Araki's Smiley Face and I remember
04:02feeling super engaged with the credits, the font, the colours and at that point in time
04:10I already knew that the record was called Brat and I had already kind of like done this
04:15draft mock-up of the Disgusting Green album cover, but I kind of knew when I saw the opening
04:23sequence of that film, I was like, okay, this feels like something I really need to
04:28pursue and seeing that movie really kind of like solidified the kind of font, text, bold
04:35album cover in my mind.
04:37So yeah, and then I actually really want to come back to The Castle Cinema on Sunday and
04:41see Maxine because I think that trilogy of the Thai West, Mia Goth movies is pretty brat,
04:49I mean, I want to be a star, that's very bratcore.
04:59When my record came out, that was June 7th, I was in London, there was just so much going
05:05on I almost sort of forgot that the record came out in a way.
05:09Then my whole internet started going green, which was really cool and overwhelming and
05:14all the fans started making these memes and I got pretty locked into that the first week
05:19just the internet, like really internetting and being crazy and fun and silly and that
05:24was pretty cool.
05:25The brat green, what does it represent?
05:27I think there's this kind of idea of making something quite disgusting and turning it
05:33into this thing that people are going to look at quite a lot and think about and ask why
05:39that green, why the pixelated font, why is it so crap?
05:44I think those questions spark a really interesting conversation about why people are annoyed
05:51about certain elements of the artwork.
05:54I really enjoyed that some people absolutely hated it and some people were writing these
06:00kind of essays on why it was good and obviously that was the point of the whole thing and
06:07kind of taking this pop art angle of yeah, you might think it's bad but you didn't do
06:11it kind of a thing, but yeah it had to be like really untrendy and uncool because there's
06:17nothing worse than vibes, you know, boo to cool vibes, I hate that.
06:29Okay, I'm going to take some popcorn for the road and then we're going to go to the next
06:36location.
06:39Okay.
06:42It's really honestly so cool to have this be the record that seems to be speaking to
06:56the most people because I made this record with no sacrifices.
07:01I still had to argue my case for certain things on this record.
07:07Not being on the album cover was something that a lot of people were uncertain about.
07:13There's always fear when it comes to kind of like sticking your neck out and like doing
07:19something that maybe isn't super conventional or something that hasn't been, you know, tried
07:25and tested before.
07:27My suspicions about how to kind of like roll out this record and the way to present it,
07:33even the songs that are on it, it's been really awesome that my suspicions about what
07:38might work were right.
07:42I think basically I'll go back to LA in a week or so, do some more kind of writing and
07:51things, and then I'll start rehearsing for the Sweat Tour with Troy, which is going to
07:58be really fun.
07:59And we've kind of just began to sort of nail down exactly what we want production-wise,
08:08you know, for how the room is going to look.
08:11At the moment, we're definitely in fantasy world of like all the things possible, you
08:15know, can we put a cage through the middle of the arena and have the audience be right
08:21up at the bars of the cage and us be able to walk through it?
08:25Can we put lights throughout the arena rather than just on the stage?
08:29You know, all these things about kind of like transforming the space, you know, I really
08:34hate when shows are sort of contained to like the stage and like a catwalk.
08:41I just, I feel like there's so much possibility, you know, within any space to really kind
08:48of like transform it into something completely unexpected.
08:52Obviously, you know, it costs a lot of money to do that.
08:55So I guess it just depends, you know, how much money we want to lose.
09:01Being on the cover of Billboard for the Brat Campaign is pretty fun because Billboard does
09:07get a shout out in the album on Rewind about how I never used to think about you guys.
09:15Sorry.
09:15I used to never think about Billboard, but now I've started thinking again.
09:21Now I'm thinking about you guys because, you know, I'm on the cover of your magazine
09:26and the album did kind of well, but I'm not going to think about you guys for that long
09:30because it like drives me a little crazy and it's not the kind of artist I want to be.
09:34But like, love you guys.
09:35Thanks for having me.
09:36And now we're going to go to my photo shoot, which is going to be really fun.
09:43So let's ride.
09:45Vroom, vroom.
09:51Vroom, vroom.
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