Crash.
| Charli XCX
Crash.
Crash (stylised in all caps) is the fifth studio album by English singer-songwriter Charli XCX, released on 18 March 2022. It was her last album to be released under her record contract with Atlantic Records. Charli announced the album title, release date, and artwork on 4 November 2021. Her website was also updated with information about the album's 2022 tour. The album was preceded by the four singles "Good Ones", "New Shapes" featuring Christine and the Queens and Caroline Polachek, "Beg for You" featuring Rina Sawayama, "Baby" and two promotional singles, "Every Rule" and "Used to Know Me". -Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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Pitchfork
Charli’s best full-length project since Pop 2 is a canny embrace of modern and vintage pop styles by one of its most sincere students.
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The Arts Fuse
And it is this mastery of presentation that ties Crash to the marquee pop acts of decades past. Charli proves herself to be a veteran who has become impressively fluent in the language of the art form. She packages existential angst and heartache in sly, self-aware performances that manage to deftly fuse self-conscious artificiality with earnest passion.
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The Post
'CRASH' is Charli XCX at her most self-destructive, seductive.
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Paste Magazine
The popstar's latest album is not her lowest point, but it is her first misstep.
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NME
a headstrong collection of carpe-diem pop bops.
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Slate
Sadly, what’s most reminiscent of David Cronenberg’s Crash here is not any shrewd insight into the nature of modern intimacy, but the prevailing theme that its central character is slipping toward the point of no return, failing to find any meaning after pushing the boundaries of their life to the breaking point. One can only hope that this is a mere moment of transition for Charli XCX, but as far as her current standing goes, she needn’t worry about her critics outshining her—no one will be building statues for this album, either.
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The Ithacan
Possibly to foreshadow “Crash”’s emblematic-of-pop theme, the day before its release, Charli was spotted wearing a pink baby t-shirt that displayed the phrase, “they don’t build statues of critics.” She’s right, they don’t, and going as far as wearing the statement only proves her focus on the superstar trope of pop as a product. What’s next for the singer-songwriter now that her contract is up? Who knows, but “Crash” is Charli’s 101 lecture on what goes on both in front of and behind the curtain in the pop industry, and when class is dismissed, she drops the mic and walks out first.
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Under the Radar Magazine
Will Crash persevere, eventually cementing itself as a leading generational classic? One may hope, but only time will tell, as such predictions often prove futile in the face of 21st century popular culture’s increasingly short-term memory. The album is most definitely a personal success for Charli XCX, who is herself a perpetually forward-thinking artist, fortunate enough never to have been forced into submission to mainstream orthodoxy, while still enjoying a decent amount of well-deserved mainstream appreciation. Crash, while certainly not for everyone (what is?), is Charli XCX’s own translation of wounds—ahead of its time yet delivered somehow at the appropriate moment.
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The Daily Free Press
“CRASH” is a gleaming pop album packed with track after track of glossy songs. The album is remarkably short — only about 34 minutes — and it flies by in a whirlwind of danceable hits. “CRASH” is definitely worth the listen.
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Daily Trojan
Charli may not be driving “Vroom Vroom’s” Lavender Lamborghini or her “White Mercedes” anymore, but she’s still behind the wheel in full control. And she’s not afraid to go off-course — buckle up.
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DIY Magazine
An album that cements her status as a true pop trailblazer.
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The Mancunion
Despite the rollout and singles not setting expectations of the album too high, overall Crash sets an example of mainstream pop which is still creative and pushes boundaries, and Charli XCX has proven once again that she is the queen of pop.
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AV Club
Charli XCX veers into her big pop era with CRASH.
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Hotpress
How I’m Feeling Now was a dark arrow aimed at her cult fanbase. With Crash she’s shooting, with a bang and a wallop, for the higher echelons of the charts. And, if incapable of writing a song that doesn’t grip stardust, the real lesson is that - great though “Mainstream” Charli is - “Underground” Charli is better yet.
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Medium
I don’t think there’s a single truly bad track on the record, and a few others, particularly “Constant Repeat” and “Yuck,” will be making appearances on my Spotify playlists. There’s no doubt in my mind of the quality of this record and of Charli as a songwriter and performer. And I also think the idea of shifting in a more commercial direction wasn’t necessarily a bad one. For me, she just twisted the knob a little too far.
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Stereogum
Crash — a conceptual project and cautionary tale about what happens when you let commerce become too much a part of your art. But I wish she could have found a way to do that and also make an album that was less underwhelming.
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The Independent
Charli XCX sounds like a woman loving life at the wheel of these 12 luxury pop vehicles.
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Crack Magazine
Crash doesn’t offer much clarity in response to these questions, and – strangely, for a so-called sellout album – is unlikely to draw in any newcomers to the XCX world. For fans who enjoy the whiplash uncertainty of the Charli experience, however, there’s a lot of face value fun to be had.
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The Arts Desk
Fifth album from a reliably bright and musically astute pop star and songwriter.
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Renowned for Sound
Charlie XCX has embraced modern and vintage pop stylings and released an album that takes influence from her early releases. It’s an atmospheric journey that is at times detached but always musically engaging.
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The Dartmouth
Due to her artistic efforts to highlight the concept of “selling out,” Charli’s new album is forgettable and constrained, although it has some enjoyable highlights.
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The Butler Collegian
In alienating past fans and attracting new ones under hesitantly temporary premises, Charli has taken risks for the sake of “CRASH;” what remains to be seen is if the debris was worth the wreck.
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The Line of Best Fit
Charli XCX’s Crash is an effortless reversion to commercial pop.
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UCSD Guardian
If there is one thing that is commendable, it’s XCX’s unrelenting belief in herself and her musical prowess. There’s something beautiful about an artist confident in their own work and at the very least it’s reassuring to know she wont stop creating until something sticks despite the words of others.
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Stuff
Charli XCX's slickest, polished, most refined album yet.
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The Times
long on fakery, short on inspiration.
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MSN
True, Aitchison’s success here does come at the expense of some of her individuality. Her vocals, rich and varied though they may be, feel more generic. But she also sounds like a woman loving life at the wheel of these 12 luxury pop vehicles. Crash is a top-down, foot-down trip.
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Vinyl Chapters
Charli XCX’s final album with Atlantic Records feels more like the rise of a phoenix than a swan song.
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AllMusic
At a sleek 33-minutes long, Crash lets songs like "Lightning" -- an unlikely but winning collision of freestyle beats, giddy orchestral synth stabs, and processed vocals -- claim the spotlight they deserve. It may not be quite as striking as how i'm feeling now, but on Crash, Charli XCX once again finds endless freedom in pop's constraints.
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Slant Magazine
A Fleet-Footed Detour Into Dance-Pop Terrain.
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Gigwise
Everywhere you look on Crash, there are songs that will—like the music they revere—be played in clubs for years and years to come. Be very, very excited about this release—and prepare to find it impossible to pick a favourite.
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Rolling Stone
The ‘”anti-pop star”delivers mega-bops that don’t dilute her art-school eccentricities.
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Uproxx
In these middle spaces, stuck squarely between happiness and skeletal existentialism, is where XCX seems to be the most at home, and that’s the polarity that Crash embodies: An artist who knows she has everything and is just as sure that something important is missing.
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The Atlantic
The pop star’s latest album, Crash, is a joyful exercise—a clever party starter that is well timed for the spring thaw.
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Spectrum Culture
Charli embraces a festive dance-pop, with varied textures pulled from the ‘70s all the way to the explosion of electronic currents in the late 2000s.
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Flood Magazine
Her fifth studio album finds Charli cherry-picking her favorite pop tropes and refracting them through her own singular lens, exercising restraint while doing so.
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Clash Magazine
‘CRASH’ is certainly a mixed bag, but it does demonstrate that, whatever her motivations and mindset, Charli XCX is an artist we should treasure. Even when she’s not at her best, she displays enough nous and melody to stand head and shoulders above practically all her rivals.
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