Charli XCX – Crash

Love all the songs on it, love the design of the record and artwork too. She deserved that fame which she got with this album.

Super quiet pressing. Opaque pressing barely any marble. It’s more purple/maroon than red though. So doesn’t look like the mock up at all. Wish it had more bass to be honest, the sound is pretty weak compared to how bass-y the album is.

Dead quiet pressing and did a light clean before the first play. The marble colors are muted at best and it's a bit transparent with backlight. Overall Good album, mine came with duplicate lyric sheets. Also it's got a great cover! Pop in another form and I like it, you might not.

This pressing sounds pretty darn good! Nice bass frequencies and perfect highs. Nice quiet vinyl. Love this album and Charli's last two works as well. Apparently, there was an issue where the newer deliveries of this specific pressing arrived in Standard Black instead of the colored variant, which I was expecting. The sound and mastering of this record makes up for the mishap regardless!

Kind of disappointed in mine. I ordered this variant from Cardinal and it’s solid black. Thought it was a mix-up but I haven’t seen a standard black pressing on the market yet. I’ve only seen colored variants. Oh well. Still love the album!

There was a time when I didn’t have a job that would consume the biggest portions of my days. A time when I didn’t go to university, trying to get a degree so I could get out of said job and do something I actually love. It was a time when I was able to devote all my time to music. I could listen to new music all day, make playlists, and stay up until midnight when a new album would drop, just so that I could hear it first hand. The last time I did that was in 2020. I climbing up on the roof of my house to get the most unique experience listening to Haim’s then-new album for the first time.

Though not on a rooftop, last night I did it again for the first time. I had friends over from out of town. We stayed up not long after midnight, had a few drinks. When I was gonna go to bed, I saw the notification that 'CRASH' had been added to my library. And for some reason, I knew I had to check it out instantly.

Even though I wasn’t even impatiently waiting for this album. Sure, I loved 'New Shapes', one of my favorite singles from last year. The other singles were mostly good too, but for a fact, they were all growers to me. 'Good Ones', 'Baby', 'Beg For You'. All songs I kept spinning after they had come out, and with the album approaching, I loved them more and more. Especially 'Good Ones', which has been out for a while now, but I can still listen to it again and again. 'Baby' too, which has been on repeat the past few weeks, even though it didn’t knock me off my feet initially.

Now with the singles having such a strong replay value and addictiveness to them, I didn’t expect Charli to deliver the way she did on the rest of the album. Next to the singles, all the other songs on 'CRASH' are such strong pop songs too. Only album closer 'Twice' might be the lone unmemorable offering. But the rest? Instant jaw droppers, all unique in their own way.

'Constant Repeat' and its sugar-coated synth lead, the sultry left-field trap of 'Move Me', the distorted nod to the 80s in 'Lightning', or the trashy euro dance of 'Used To Know Me'. While Charli’s vocals and delivery are good, it’s evident what makes these songs so great in the first place. Each of them was produced by Ariel Rechtshaid, in my humble opinion nothing less than a musical mastermind. The way he’s been caught up with Haim in the past, I didn’t expect him to have produced more than one song on CRASH. Turns out he’s responsible for most of what makes this album so good.

It all starts with his edits on the album-opening title track, which might be the best song on the album, despite being more of an intro. But the way Ariel buries Charli’s speak-singing under those feathery synths and guitars, and then crowns the whole thing with that wrenching guitar solo is just undeniably good.

Now for the controversy about this being Charli’s mainstream era and her losing her artistic vision or whatever. The way I see it, you either like CRASH a lot, or you don’t enjoy it for the most part. Anyway, the more important thing is that the artist is happy with what they’re releasing out into the world. And that’s something only Charli herself can determine. In my opinion, the classic pop of CRASH is a genius move contrasting well with her visionary recent releases.

Everything about the CRASH era is so overly tacky and glimmering with kitsch. In a way, for Charli’s standards the entire CRASH vision and idea is very anti-mainstream, which makes it trademark Charli again. The XCX vision has always been to approach pop music from completely different standpoints than other musicians. With most artists trying to hop onto the hyper- and progressive-pop train, Charli steps off to make the most straight-forward pop music of her career, thereby possibly creating the next vision.

I don’t think this is Charli abandoning what made her unique as an artist. I think CRASH is just the next adventure in her mere limitless pop universe. How great that it includes an entire album of such well-made, infectious pop music that’s well worth the anticipation and effort of staying up past midnight.

Best tracks: Crash, New Shapes, Lightning, Constant Repeat

disc is more purple than red (which still looks pretty good), sounds solid!

I found it mad confusing that the vinyl was maroon, it looks so ugly with the red in the middle. kinda dissapointed with that.

Love this edition, however, i don't know why but "Used to Know me" sounds really bad, like the voice is not well integrated and a little distorted. Otherwise, the sound is great with a little bit of surface noise in both sides. But I'm happy with it!

Not a big fan of the color as it looks more purple/maroon than red (and the marble effect is not very visible either), but it sounds great, and that's what matters the most. Nice artwork and packaging, too. Overall I'm really enjoying this album!