I suspect Charli XCX isn’t on many of your radars, but something happened on Twitter last night. Charli is one half of the “Fancy” song that made Iggy Azalea famous for a little over fifteen minutes. She (unlike Iggy) has a decent voice and doesn’t pretend to be anything but a pop star, but Charli also had premature assertions about her staying power. Anyway, I only know Charli from “Fancy” and “Boom/Clap,” but she’s been headlining a joint tour with Jack Antonoff (from Fun., and he’s also dating Lena Dunham).
Yesterday’s Columbus, Ohio show sounds like it was a disaster. Antonoff spent much of the day in the ER, but I guess he was okay. He made the show and enjoyed himself. Charli did not enjoy herself. A few days ago, she tweeted about her discontent at bad reviews:
whenever reviewers criticize my show for having “minimal production” I literally want to smash their face into a wall….
like honestly r u watching a different show or can you not see the 16 neon outlined amplifiers, the giant inflatable heart & the staircase?
ALSO if you’re gonna slam me for playing an inflatable guitar honestly you can go f*** yourself.
[From Charli XCX on Twitter]
Then this message arrived last night after the Columbus show:
goodbye tour. goodbye america. goodbye world.
— CHARLI XCX (@charli_xcx) August 13, 2015
Some people are thinking that Charli has quit her tour and/or is threatening something very scary with the “goodbye world” detail. I don’t know what’s going on with her, but if she’s simply upset about what critics say, she should understand critics usually don’t know jack. They’re just people with an opinion who happened to score a gig where a few people will read about their opinion. No one is going to remember what a critic said about a pop concert. The inflatable guitar is a bit silly, but again, no big deal. I hope Charli’s okay and is simply taking a breather.
Photos courtesy of WENN
I liked the guitar… She’s not holding a real one and pretending to play, at least.
About her, if I’m going to base my opinion on the two songs I know from her, she’s appealingly untalented.
“She’s not holding a real one and pretending to play, at least.”
YES!!!
She actually has some very good pop songs. Enjoyed her album ‘Sucker’ a lot.
She wrote for other artists, too. She wrote the Icona Pop song I Love It which was huge a couple of years ago.
I agree. I bought Sucker to work out to, and it’s pretty great pop-ness.
The only two times I’ve ever been aware of her: her very terrible live performance on SNL, and numerous friends of mine who said she was the worst act at this year’s Lollapalooza.
I hope she’s okay. I really do. But a tweet like that seems like an infantile attention-grab. But then again, maybe Twitter is the only way she feels like she can express her true feelings, and she really is dealing with some serious stuff. Idk. Hope she’s okay.
I think she’s just quitting social media — i guess we’ll see.
I hope she is ok, she is a talented little pop song writer and a fun girl to watch
Agreed- also – it could be very possible that she’s just dropping out of the music world/fame. Maybe she’s throwing in the towel and plans on doing something different.
When your home planet needs you…what can you do?
I feel a little bad but this really made me laugh!
Wow she seems really overwhelmed. Hope she gets a break.
Aw, I feel bad for her. Let her fans enjoy her. I went to Depeche Mode’s last concert tour and was truly blown away, and I remember reading a review and thought to myself, did they even see the same concert I did? It was such a phony review, full of itself.
Why are pop stars so dramatic these days?
I really do hope she’s okay but that tweet is the worst, everyone knows what the context of a phrase like ‘Goodbye World’ is so I hope she doesn’t pop up a few days later like “Lol, guys of course I wasn’t talking about suicide, duh”
These days?
Whether the tweet is in reference to music or something else its not coming from a good place. Hopefully she has good people around her to help address whatever the issue/s are.
She’s being overdramatic. She should consider herself lucky because she’s not that amazing for someone so successful.
The younger generation of actors and singers seem incapable of simply not reading about themselves. Don’t read reviews, just go perform your best and gauge how you’re doing based on audience reaction.
That said, I hope this is just youthful over-dramatic stuff, and not a sign of a serious issue.
She’s genuinely talented, unlike many others – hope she’s okay. (Incidentally, she wrote Icona Pop’s ‘I Love It’ as well…)
Just saw her couple of weeks ago performing in a music festival in Europe/Latvia. She is not such a big name around here, but she did put up a decent show and most of the crowd seemed to enjoy her.
I didn’t think much of her though, her songs seemed all so similar to me. But obviously I am not her target audience (OT: I left her show in favour of Kasabian who started playing on the main stage. And they were so good!)
I wish her all the best and hope she continues with music. The critics are just full of themselves most of the time
She’s a very talented girl. She wrote some of my favorite songs in the last two years,she wrote red balloon from the movie soundtrack for,home. I love that song. I hope she’s okay,u really have to have tough skin in the entertainment industry.
I’m getting a Wilma Flintstone vibe from that top picture outfit!!!!
Wait what– so people are actually paying more attention to the sh!t on stage– the PROPS- than the music? Why am I not surprised…. it explains why no-talent showoffs get all the air time.
I’ve never heard her sing live, so I don’t know how talented she is but: 1) if she is a good musician, the critics should praise her for that, instead of focusing on inflatable guitars 2) if she can’t sing, they should criticize her for that, instead of focusing on inflatable guitars.
My generalized point is – I find it ridiculous that these days production value seems to be more important than the actual talent. Maybe I’m too old school, but music should be enough. Katy Perry is praised for her concerts, even though she can’t hold a tune, just because she changes outfits million times and has dancers dressed like beach balls and palm trees behind her. Then if some musician with real talent dares to just stay in front of the microphone and sing, they are bashed for not being entertaining enough. I know this is pop music, but the Beatles played pop songs too and their music was enough. Now they’d be expected to swing on giant diamonds over a submarine shaped stage, with a robotic (not inflatable) octopus waving its arms around them to be called good stage acts. It’s good if someone multi-talented like Beyonce or Pink wants to do it, but it shouldn’t be mandatory. Not every musician is also a skilled dancer/gymnast/comedian/circus performer. If I were an actual singer/songwriter, proud of my music, and some jerks would criticize me for low production value, I’d want to quit too.
She does not sound like someone well-suited to a future of entertaining people.