The 15 Greatest Charli XCX Songs

Earlier this year, a Billboard article described the failure of music industry executives to break new pop artists. A senior executive remarked on labels: “I think they’re all lost.” Pop stars—and pop music in general—have permanently changed, and labels can’t keep up.

Want to know how to break a fledgling pop star? Maybe ask Charli XCX. The British pop artist—born Charlotte Aitchison—is reaching new heights of fame and success over a decade into her career. Her 2022 album Crash was her fifth and final release on her contract with Atlantic Records, but it was also her first UK number one and Billboard Top 10. The truth is, most pop artists don’t happen overnight (although some do). Aitchison’s arduous journey to the level of a conventional pop star was marked by label disputes, false starts, and a drastic transformation since her “Boom Clap” and “Fancy” days.

Charli reached her current status—an experimentalist, critical darling, number one hitmaker, movie soundtracker, Tiktok star, and queen of poppers-inhaling terminally online gay men—by incessantly following her own vision. While we wait patiently to see what she does next, we’ve ranked the 15 greatest Charli XCX songs. So hop into your lavender Lamborghini (but absolutely not a taxi), and speed drive to the top.

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15. “Hot Girl” (2022)

Charli XCX’s songs run the full emotional gamut from “I don’t deserve your love” to “When I run you over with my car, the only crime will be how hot I looked doing it.” Charli’s contribution to A24’s Bodies Bodies Bodies sits at the latter extreme. With its pitched-up vocals and floor-breaking bass, “Hot Girl” is reminiscent of Charli’s collection of leaks, the fan-favorite XCXworld project. Has she ever sounded as badass as when she proclaims “And I’m going skiing even when the slopes are closed / ‘Cause I’m so hot with snow up my nose”? It’s a hyperbolic, coke-fueled, queen-of-the-club bender and tremendously fun for its too-brief runtime.

14. “Roll With Me” (Number 1 Angel, 2017)

Number 1 Angel is often overlooked next to the brilliance of its twin 2017 mixtape, Pop 2. She and PC Music producer A.G. Cook used the experimentations of Number 1 Angel for greater projects later on, but the mixtape is the most carefree in Charli’s catalog. There’s no better example than “Roll With Me,” a SOPHIE-produced party track as tight as a snare drum. Charli sticks as many saccharine hooks as she can into the chorus, and they flow with the confidence of the cool kids pulling up to the function. Charli has plenty of party songs, but “Roll With Me” is her most playful. “Do you wanna roll with me?” she asks. With a song like this, the answer is obviously yes.

13. “Boys” (2017)

Charli has an uncanny ability to imprint a “basic” pop song with her undeniable persona. Even at her most mainstream, she doesn’t make monotonous Pop Workout playlist fodder; she sticks out. Recent hits like “1999,” “Good Ones” and the Barbie soundtrack cut “Speed Drive” demonstrate that pop girl prowess. But “Boys” is Charli’s best crossover moment. It’s a queer boy’s Song of the Summer every summer. Even though “Boys” soundtracks Fire Island parties and Pride parades annually, it never loses its freshness. Each Super Mario Bros synth leaps with the excitement of a new hottie to obsess over. “Boys” is a model for what good pop music can be: as light and joyful as a brand-new crush.

12. “Nuclear Seasons” (True Romance, 2013)

True Romance, Charli’s debut album, is rough around the edges, scrappy with the attitude of a newcomer eager to prove herself. It’s a bit Tumblr-core (not a bad thing): “Let’s die together / No one lives forever” she repeats on the intro to “Nuclear Seasons” with the yearning of a Twilight movie. But it’s still, well, Charli. “Nuclear Seasons” is a masterclass in early 2010s alt-pop. The rumbling bass synth, the soundscapes like little bombs going off alongside the hook, the “Good times / dark nights” refrain in the final chorus—it’s melodramatic, loveable and smartly-crafted. Charli’s romantic Tumblr-pop is just as enjoyable as her PC Music collaborations or Crash’s authentic sell-out. She had to start somewhere.

11. “Next Level Charli” (Charli, 2019)

You can’t talk about Charli XCX without mentioning her Angels. Charli’s fans love her fiercely, and that fierceness is often volatile. On the one hand, Charli’s relationship with her fans is a source of inspiration and partnership, like when she included her followers in the creative process for 2020’s how i’m feeling now. On the other hand, they feel entitled to an ownership in their pop queen’s artistry. They’ve lashed out at her for changing a song title, her album rollout strategy or her decision to keep an unreleased track with SOPHIE in the vault.

But if there’s any doubt as to the mutual love between Charli and her angels, “Next Level Charli” resolves it. It bursts with energy and hypes up her audience in a way that makes her fans feel known. The lyrics reference her other songs that true XCX scholars can identify: “Bounce, never sleep,” “Vroom Vroom,” “Roll wit’ your friends” “no crash,” the “it’s Charli baby” tag. Beyond her big hits like “Boom Clap” or “Fancy,” Charli has always been an “If-you-know-you-know” artist, and “Next Level Charli” is a statement of love to those that know.

10. “I Got It” ft. Brooke Candy, CupcakKe and Pablo Vittar (Pop 2, 2017)

If anyone ever doubts that Charli XCX is hard, show them “I Got It.” A posse of queer and queer-adjacent artists came together to make a track that is defiant to the core. It’s provocative, hypersexual and ahead of its time. The Pop 2 cut came out years before Cupcakke’s ubiquity on Tiktok or raunchy crossover hits like “WAP.” Every single artist here is on their A-game, with a particularly clever verse from CupcakKe. Even though Charli says little more than three words in the song, she turns “I Got It” into a mantra of self-worth. The song is a braggadocious banger, but it also feels necessary and urgent for every artist featured. Hypersexual rappers, a drag queen and a pop star unite on “I Got It” to insist that they truly have it, a declaration of worth in a world that might’ve never given them their due otherwise.

9. “visions” (how i’m feeling now, 2020)

Charli has plenty of songs that build to a drop. “Unlock It” drops into a half-time beat at its climax. The menacing “Click” drops into an outro of mechanical mayhem. Even “Track 10” culminates in a drop, until the momentum is swept away into harps. But there is no single moment in Charli’s discography quite like the peak of “visions.” “visions” takes all of the anxiety and emotion of how i’m feeling now and frees it in a single moment. Charli created “visions” in the middle of lockdown, a period of enclosure and claustrophobia. “Visions” provided an escape, a rave track so forceful it sends you to the club no matter where you are. Three years later, its big drop still beams you into the stratosphere, offering that same necessary rush of release.

8. “Unlock It” ft. Kim Petras and Jay Park (Pop 2, 2017)

Even before it had its fifteen minutes of fame on Tiktok, “Unlock It” was Pop 2’s hit. Its bubblegum euphoria made it a fan favorite and live show staple. The main hook edits a spoken word chant (“Lock it, lock it, unlock it”) like a glitched-out computer. It’s a rhythmic earworm, and impossible to sing along to without feeling a prickle of joy and sass. Kim Petras brings her best to “Unlock It,” including the greatest use of her “Woo ah!” tagline in her career so far. And contrary to the discourse, K-hip hop artist Jay Park doesn’t detract from the song’s effortlessness. The inclusion of both Petras and Park demonstrates Charli’s adventurousness as a collaborator and curator. “Unlock It” is the best of both worlds for Charli: An experiment in uncanny valley-esque pop and as breezy as a rollercoaster ride in the fast lane.

7. “Constant Repeat” (CRASH, 2022)

When Charli announced that 2022’s CRASH would be her “sell-out” album, her fans reacted: Would she still work with A.G. Cook? Is she abandoning hyperpop forever? Would the music be…boring? But the defining feature in Charli’s discography is her ability to sell a song as her own. It doesn’t matter if she’s blowing up tracks with Cook or hopping on a song someone else pitched to her. “Constant Repeat” proves that when Charli sells out, she does it on her own terms. It’s a dark and smokey track; its synths flash like strobe lights. And she gifts the hook with her confidence and unfailing delivery. “Got me on repeat-peat,” she coos in the outro, a final message to anyone that doubts her. She’ll sell out if she wants to, and you’ll still be playing it on repeat.

6. “forever” (how i’m feeling now, 2020)

Logistically, how i’m feeling now is a “COVID album.” Charli wrote and recorded nearly the entire tracklist during six weeks of lockdown in 2020. But to view this album as “about COVID” is reductive. It’s an album about the collision of feelings: love for a romantic partner, love for friends, loneliness and the need for catharsis. The chaos of experiencing all this at once. Somehow, “forever” does all of that. It’s a love song, sure. But its storminess complicates it. Waves crash in the verses. The production contorts the word “forever” till it’s barely recognizable. “Love you,” Charli echoes amidst the abrasive noise in the mix. “forever” isn’t just a love song; it’s one for an apocalyptic world.

5. “Backseat” ft. Carly Rae Jepsen (Pop 2, 2017)

Across Pop 2, Charli and A.G. Cook opt for maximalism. On tracks like “Femmebot” and “Delicious,” they channel their humongous sound to fill up every corner of your headphones with ecstatic pop. But on “Backseat,” Charli links with the reigning Queen of Emotion Carly Rae Jepsen to use that massiveness for their universe-sized feelings. Famously, Charli XCX has plenty of songs about cars. But “Backseat” is one of the few that uses the motif as a vehicle for pain, rather than her usual odes to speeding. In the XCX Cinematic Universe, the car is a symbol of both freedom and loneliness, and Charli and Carly use those compounding feelings on a song as forceful as a Ferrari.

4. “party 4 u” (how i’m feeling now, 2020)

“Party 4 u” is the crux of how i’m feeling now: tender, vulnerable, simultaneously lonely and in love. It’s a Great Gatsby tale for the modern era. Charli throws parties just to see one person; she’s surrounded by crowds and feels lonelier than ever. “party 4 u” is some of her most specific and detailed writing compared to the broad strokes of her usual lyrics. The party has everything: red balloons, purple pills, a “DJ with your favorite tunes,” even a pool. That’s what makes the final verse so devastating—“I wish you’d get here, kiss my face / Instead you’re somewhere far away / My nervous energy will stay / I hope you realize one day.” Charli XCX, a confident pop queen, is wounded on “party 4 u.” The best party in the world isn’t fun at all without the right people by your side. (That woundedness also makes it the perfect needle-drop at the climax of high-art film Bottoms).

3. “Gone” ft. Christine and the Queens (Charli, 2019)

“Gone” is the paradigm of a perfect Charli XCX song. Every element is here: big-room synths, designed to glimmer like neon and hit like a brick; kinetic chemistry with a fellow pop music auteur; a colossal production breakdown. For all of her songs about the joy of partying, Charli is just as good at channeling the opposite. “Gone” is an outsider’s anthem. It speaks to the discomfort of being at a party you’re not sure anyone wants you at. In the song’s final minute, Charli and Christine and the Queens take all that insecurity and send it to the dance floor. The outro distorts the song’s main hook so the vocals sound submerged in water; the lyrics jump over A.G.’s stuttering beat. And then it ends—“I’m already gone, baby”—with the finality of two artists who don’t need anyone else’s approval to dictate their own worth.

2. “Vroom Vroom” (Vroom Vroom, 2016)

For accustomed Charli listeners, “Vroom Vroom” is as holy as the Bible and twice as iconic. But those that scream its lyrics like maniacal demons can also forget how weird this song is. Even among the most abrasive Charli cuts, “Vroom Vroom’s” composition defies logic. It flips between its sections with abandon; sneering raps in one moment and cheeky “Lemme ride! Lemme ride!” cheers in the next.

“Vroom Vroom” requires buy-in. Its synthetic production–courtesy of SOPHIE–is brutal and unapologetic. But to buy into its chrome and steel is to reward yourself with one of the most monstrously good bangers of the 21st century. And if you resist it, the song speeds right by, maybe spinning a quick circle around you in the process.

“Vroom Vroom” treats going out, looking hot, and driving fast with the kind of intensity it deserves. It leans into chaos, and, in doing so, it creates a space where girls, gays, and theys (and whoever else wants to join) can be the baddest versions of themselves. The only possible way “Vroom Vroom” gets any better is the way Charli devours it live. She performs it with the confidence of a number one hit and the attitude of a long-time club kid. (Please see the definitive 2022 Lollapalooza performance for a demonstration.) Charli XCX and SOPHIE give pop a much needed tune-up on “Vroom Vroom,” one bubblegum pink Ferrari at a time.

1. “Track 10” (Pop 2, 2017)

When Pop 2 was released in December 2017, Charli XCX was a different level of pop artist. There were no A24 movie singles or hyped Coachella sets. At the time, her music constantly leaked, which stalled any official release. Her two mixtapes of 2017 were self-funded and named “mixtapes” to bypass label red-tape. She was best—or perhaps only—known as “the Boom Clap girl.” Rather than Billboard hits or Rolling Stone cover stories, her music spread through the closest thing we have to word-of-mouth. She was revered on music forums like Reddit’s r/popheads and circles of music fans on Twitter.

It’s hard to separate “Track 10” from this period. After all, the components of “Track 10” are a near-literal metaphor for this era. It uses pieces of “Blame It on Your Love,” a much less memorable song that leaked. While making Pop 2, Charli and her producers deconstructed the then-scrapped “Blame It on Your Love” and Frankenstein-ed it into this five minute epic. “Blame / Blame / Blame / Blame,” the beat repeats like a computer iterating on the same word. “Track 10” embodies the frustration of feeling stuck.

“Track 10” simply sounds incredible. Its build is magnetic, and then it dispels like a nebula. It takes all of the interior feelings in the recording booth and casts them out as fluorescent synth arpeggios, autotune and thunderous cracks. If it feels artificial, abrasive or distorted, that’s because it is. “Track 10” is a staunch refusal to be a factory-line pop artist. When she delivers the closing line–“It’s Charli baby”—whispered like a secret, it’s the thesis of the whole project. There’s a reason that so many of Charli’s core fans are queer, aside from her constant bops. It’s because, for a straight person, “It’s Charli baby” is such gay messaging. It’s an assertion of identity in a world where conformity is correlated with success. No wonder so many fans connect with it.

Check out a playlist of these 15 songs below. Listen to Charli XCX’s Daytrotter session from 2012 here.

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Andy Steiner is a writer, musician and works in the music industry. When he’s not reviewing albums, you can find him collecting ‘80s Rush merchandise. Follow him on Instagram or Twitter.