The ultimate ranking of Charli XCX’s albums, mixtapes, and EPs from worst to best. From True Romance to Music Fashion, Film, see where your favourites have ranked.
- True Romance (2013)
- SUCKER (2014)
- Vroom Vroom (2016)
- Number 1 Angel (2017)
- Pop 2 (2017)
- Charli (2018)
- how i’m feeling now (2020)
- CRASH (2022)
- BRAT (2024)
- Wuthering Heights (2026)
- Music, Fashion, Film (2026)
#11
SUCKER (2014)
CHARLI GOES FOR A CANDY-COATED POP PUNK, ON HER SOPHOMORE RELEASE.
Arriving only one year after her debut album, True Romance, Charli’s second album finds the U.K. pop queen expanding on her synthpop sound with more of a pop punk influence this time around. SUCKER feels like a marginal step down from True Romance (which itself wasn’t particularly amazing), and though it’s far from being a failure, I feel like Charli xcx is capable of something better and more inspired than this.
Highlights: Boom Clap
#10
True Romance (2013)
A NEW POP STAR IN THE MAKING.
Named after the 1993 Quentin Tarantino-written and Tony Scott-directed film True Romance, British singer Charli xcx’s debut album is 1980s synthpop with modern pop sensibilities. True Romance is a good debut album that shows a lot of potential, though Charli would get significantly better on her later albums.
7/10
Highlights: Nuclear Seasons, Stay Away, You’re the One
#9
Number 1 Angel (2017)
CHARLI’S FIRST MIXTAPE OF 2017.
Compared to the somewhat dark and experimental Vroom Vroom, Charli is a little more grounded in pop on Number 1 Angel, though the deep bass and influence of that EP is still present here. Number 1 Angel can get a bit repetitive throughout its runtime and it does feel a bit regressive from Vroom Vroom, but the production is still fantastic across the mixtape.
7.5/10
Highlights: Dreamer, Blame It on U, ILY2
#8
Pop 2 (2017)
CHARLI’S SECOND MIXTAPE OF 2017.
Released about half a year after Number 1 Angel, Pop 2 has Charli continuing with the electropop sound of that mixtape and includes a long list of features, including Carly Rae Jepsen, Caroline Polachek, and Kim Petras. Pop 2 was an improvement over Number 1 Angel and another step towards her eventual greatness.
8/10
Highlights: Backseat, Femmebot, Track 10
#7
Charli (2018)
CHARLI REINVENTS HERSELF AGAIN ON HER FEATURE-HEAVY SELF-TITLED ALBUM.
Despite releasing an EP and two mixtapes in the interim, it had been five years since Charli xcx’s last proper LP, which was 2014’s Sucker. Here, Charli reinvents herself with an album that’s more experimental than anything she’s done yet, along with plenty of big features, including Christine and the Queens, Sky Ferreira, Lizzo, and Haim.
Next Level Charli is a great opener and one of her best songs. The nostalgic 1999 was the lead single and love letter to the end of an era (see its The Matrix-inspired single artwork). Cross You Out (featuring Sky Ferreira) and Gone (featuring Christine and the Queens) are other highlights. Shake It is quite awful and should never have been released in the first place, and Blame It On Your Love (a remake of the Pop 2 song, Track 10), is an inferior to Charli’s earlier version.
Even though I like it less than the laser-focused four song EP Vroom Vroom, Charli is still a strong album and a great way for Charli xcx to end her first decade with.
8/10
Highlights: Next Level Charli, 1999, Cross You Out
#6
CRASH (2022)
CHARLI RELEASES A MORE TRADITIONAL POP ALBUM, FOREGOING HER USUAL EXPERIMENTATION.
After releasing her best album yet with how i’m feeling now, an album that balanced both hooks and experimental production, Charli xcx released CRASH, her most conventional project since her first two albums (at least relatively-speaking). Although it foregoes much of her experimentation, it’s still an album ripe with accomplished pop, sublime production and hooks galore. CRASH produced six singles, but any song 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 1980s revivalism, but this is still superb pop that few of Charli’s contemporaries can match and one of her most underrated albums.
8.5/10
Highlights: Crash, New Shapes, Good Ones, Beg for You, Baby, Yuck, Used to Know Me
#5
Wuthering Heights (2026)
CHARLI EXPERIMENTS WITH AN ORCHESTRA ON THIS BRILLIANT AND AMBITIOUS FILM SOUNDTRACK.
Released as the soundtrack to the latest adaptation of Emily Brontë’s famous and controversial work, Wuthering Heights sees Charli xcx experimenting with orchestral instruments and noise on this compelling album.
Charli promised that her next album would be the anti-BRAT and while she seemed to have been referring to Music, Fashion, Film, Wuthering Heights also fits that description, as the instrumentation is mostly vintage, rustic and a little bit industrial, so it doesn’t feel much at all like BRAT, though it does still feel 100% like Charli. There are still flavours of eighties revivalism throughout the album and no other song gets quite as dark and strange as House, but this is far more experimental than most pop artists would ever dream of becoming. If Charli’s goal was to make an album that was both elegant and brutal, I’d say she succeeded. Every track here was immaculate and theatrical and I love seeing pop artists be this adventurous and unpredictable.
8.5/10
Highlights: House, Wall of Sound, Dying for You, Always Everywhere, Chains of Love, Seeing Things, Altars
#4
Vroom Vroom (2016)
CHARLI SHIFTS INTO TOP GEAR.
After crafting hit songs, like Boom Clap, Charli xcx was becoming a pop force to be reckoned with, but that wasn’t enough for her. Her first two albums provided some decent pop music, but neither was quite good enough to become classics, but with Vroom Vroom, Charli levels up her artistry and game, branching off into more experimental pop territory. Although it’s only an EP, Vroom Vroom is both a significant release and in my opinion, Charli’s best project of the 2010s — this is where the Charli xcx story really started to take off.
9/10
Highlights: Vroom Vroom, Secret (Shh)
#3
how i’m feeling now (2020)
CHARLI’S D.I.Y. PANDEMIC ALBUM.
Recorded in a matter of weeks during COVID lockdown, how i’m feeling now was a reflection of the times we were living in during the 2020 pandemic. The album was made with input from both fans and producers, providing Charli with some contact with the outside world during the lonesome writing and recording sessions.
how i’m feeling now is pop music with an experimental edge and goes to show that Charli xcx can blend pop and experimentalism better than any of her contemporaries. While it may have been topped by albums that came since, at the time of its release, this was Charli’s best album and her first album that I’d give a perfect score.
10/10
Highlights: pink diamond, forever, claws, enemy, i finally understand, party 4 u
#2
Music, Fashion, Film (2026)
CHARLI XCX CRAFTS A CANDID, EXPERIMENTAL, ART ROCK MASTERPIECE
Charli wasn’t lying when she said that her next album after BRAT was going to be the “anti-BRAT“, as Music, Fashion, Film is an art rock album first and foremost, one that features three men on the cover instead of her, one that ditches the synthesizers that filled the clubs for distorted guitars, one that takes the introspective lyrics of BRAT to a new level, one that will divide fans who weren’t ready for such an album — it’s a brutally honest and naked record, filled with experimental and raw production, but that doesn’t mean it’s not catchy or something you can’t dance to either.
Based on the reception of the singles and the immersion into rock instrumentals, a lot of Charli’s fans were expected to hate Music, Fashion, Film, as will the rock purists who think she’s a poser, but this record wasn’t made for them, it was made for her. Unlike most artists who would play it safe by whoring themselves out for the approval of their fans, Charli did what a controversial artist like Lou Reed would do, which is stick to her guns and do what’s instinctual, even if it means losing fans in the process. While nothing lasts forever and Charli may someday be forgotten, she is without a doubt the most important and interesting woman in music today.
Music, Fashion, Film might not be Charli’s greatest achievement, but in many ways, it’s her most artistically important one yet.
10/10
Highlights: Rock Music, SS26, Card Declined Camera, I’m Afraid, Wink Wink
#1
BRAT (2024)
CHARLI BECOMES THE ZEITGEIST OF SUMMER ’24.
BRAT was simply the biggest album of summer 2024 and it’s easy to see why — from the vibrant production, to the simplistic graphic design and marketing, to the mix of boastful and vulnerable lyrics, as well as the overall confidence exuded from Charli, BRAT was destined to flourish, turning Charli xcx from a critical darling to the pop star to beat.
Where 15 tracks would be too many on most albums, BRAT is so good that the album breezes past you, making you want to relisten to it again and again. BRAT is Charli xcx’s magnum opus and one of the best pop albums of the millennium — it’s deserving of all the praise and attention it has gotten and while I think that she has other perfect albums, this is by far her most definitive one.
10/10
Highlights: every song