For the final album on her major-label contract, the contrary pop auteur decided to dance with the devil to make a nakedly commercial record – though her self-awareness still shone throughThe 50 best albums of 2022The best songs of 2022More of the best culture of 2022Being a top-flight pop star in 2022 seems fairly thankless, at least if you listen to most top-flight pop stars: tormented by the demand to sell themselves, renounce their privacy and see their deeply felt art reduced to memes. Dissent is spreading, with some acts making purposefully low-key work to dodge the spotlight; others balking at being “forced” on to TikTok. Count Charli XCX out of this performative protest. Since she signed to Atlantic aged 16, she’s always been vocal about the toll of existing within a major label, but the often-fractious relationship between both sides never stopped her from releasing the most gamechanging pop of the past decade nor landing hits (albeit hits she would sometimes come to resent).
It made the magnificent heel turn she played on Crash all the more surprising. On her fifth album – and last on her contract – she decided to embrace the trappings that Atlantic had to offer, “to make a major-label album in the major label way”. She temporarily sidelined the mutant vision behind Pop 2 and Vroom Vroom to work with blue-chip songwriters, nailing full choreo and grinding on her own grave in the video for lead single Good Ones. Fittingly, there are moments of ruthlessly basic pop on Crash: Beg for You interpolates September’s 2005 hit Cry for You and sounds knowingly dead behind the eyes, as any 2000s Eurodance banger should; Yuck is a cute cheerleader chant (and would-be Doja Cat hit) about recoiling from romance.