Released: 2022

Genres: Synthpop, Dance Pop, Electropop

The Musiquarium’s CRASH Review Score: 9 out of 10

After releasing her best album yet with how i’m feeling now, an album that balanced both hooks and experimental production, Charli xcx releases CRASH, her most conventional project since her first two albums (at least relatively-speaking). Although it foregoes much of the experimentation of her past couple of albums, it’s still an album ripe with accomplished pop, sublime production and hooks galore.

The title track is probably the first thing to make car crashes sexy since the controversial 1996 David Cronenberg film of the same name. Christine and the Queens features on the deliciously eighties, New Shapes. The synths in Good Ones bring to mind Eurythmic’s Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This). Baby sounds a similar to Britney Spears’ Toxic. Charli seems disgusted by love on Yuck.

CRASH produced six singles (Good Ones, New Shapes, Beg for You, Baby, Every Rule, Used to Know Me), but most of the songs here had the potential to have been one. The album may lack the experimentation that made her last album such a masterpiece and indulges a bit too much in eighties revivalism, but this is still superb pop that few of Charli’s contemporaries can match.

For credit breakdowns and historic release details, view Charli xcx on Discogs.

Back to the 2022 Album Reviews Guide or the Charli xcx Reviews page.

Written by Brett Nippard