Album Of The Week: Charli XCX Sucker

Charli XCX is not going to be anyone's fucking pop music bridesmaid anymore. It's not happening. Forget it. Over the past two years, Charli has helped give global, career-defining hits to Icona Pop ("I Love It," co-wrote it, guide vocals still very much audible on the final song) and Iggy Azalea ("Fancy," wrote and sung the best-thing-about-the-song chorus and bridge). At this point, she could very easily slip into that Ryan Tedder behind-the-scenes song-doctor role. But she is not going to let that happen for one fucking second. True Romance, her great year-and-a-half-old album, was an album full of strong pop songs, but those songs were couched in floaty, gothy synthpop signifiers. It was an indie festival-pop album, basically. She wasn't going to make another of those. Talking to NME over the summer, Charli said, "I'm not making a hipster record." No shit. Instead, she's made a big and brash and colorful and impossible-to-ignore pop album, an album that slams you in the face with hook after hook, an impossible album to ignore. And on its own bold, mercenary terms, Sucker is a hell of an album.