Jeovany Tzilin Gomez
Contributing Writer
Hyperpop artist Charli xcx (Charli) celebrates the fifth anniversary of her album, “how i’m feeling now,” on May 15 since its release during quarantine. She posted on her Instagram a thank-you letter for her fans who contributed to the success of the album, and she released a music video for “party 4 u,” one of the album’s songs, on YouTube.
“how i’m feeling now” released on May 15, 2020, when people around the world had to quarantine due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The album explores themes of solitude and the desire to be close to someone during troubling times.
The overall production of “how i’m feeling now” is very bright with loud, punchy drums and bratty vocals. The songs aren’t the usual pop heard in mainstream music, both bringing vulnerability and striving for a good time, despite difficulty.
The album’s pandemic release makes its party sensations and love messages even more potent. While the world was able to recover structurally from the pandemic, people still felt alone due to the effects of mainly relying on the internet for communication and entertainment.
“pink diamond” is a strong start for the album with bouncy drums and industrial sounds. Charli lets the listeners know that she just wants to party by saying, “I just wanna go real hard / Pink diamond in the dark.” She compares herself to a pink diamond, saying that she’s unique for her musical aesthetics, and she wants to encourage listeners’ to dance. After every verse or chorus, the instrumental either gets layered with more sounds, or it completely changes while still maintaining the feeling of dancing in a club.
In some of her songs in “how i’m feeling now,” she raps during her verses, which brings her bratty persona to the forefront. Some critics compare “how i’m feeling now” with Charli’s critically acclaimed album, “BRAT,” by the sound and experimentation it brought to the pop music scene.
“forever” is a song dedicated to Charli’s former partner, Huck Kwong. Charli expresses that she will continue to love him, even if they’re not together romantically. She uses a lot of repetition, like singing “be here” along with the song’s rhythm. Some of the distortion presented in the song presents the pain of letting him go, but she ultimately knows that both she and Kwong will be okay.
“claws” is a pleasure anthem about how Charli “loves everything” about her partner. Her repetition of “I like” in the chorus adds to the song’s catchiness and cheekiness. The part that stands out the most was the end of the song where an explosion of echoing voices emerge, representing excitement during intimacy.
“7 years” has Charli reflect on continual love as she confesses that she has learned so much by spending time with a partner. She sings, “I used to live inside a lie with you (With you) / And now we’re honest and it feels so good (Ah, ah),” describing her experience of opening up to her partner in a long-term relationship. She believes that her love for her partner doesn’t need to be proven through marriage as she sings, “Without the Holy matrimony, I’m wife (I’m wife) / We went from distant to inseparable types (That’s right).”
“detonate” is a song about Charli feeling like she’s not right for a partner because she can hurt them. She sings, “Everything will stay cool / But I can’t promise that’s true,” letting her partner know that she can explode at any time when the relationship between them isn’t working out. Charli compares herself to a bomb since she is always high energy and doesn’t want to be messed with. The instrumental in the song uses a lot of ticking sounds that one would hear in explosives.
“party 4 u” is the most streamed song of the album. In it, she sings about celebrating someone’s life, even if it’s not their birthday. The decorative imagery, like “1,000 pink balloons / DJ with your favorite tunes,” shows her affection for her former partner, Mike Kerr. She wants to throw a party for him because she feels like it’s the best way to show her love for him, even if no one else is there to celebrate.
Charli’s album “how i’m feeling now” is an internal journey that contains realizations of finding true love and maintaining her ground while navigating through romantic conflict. The confident noisiness of the instrumentals shows that Charli isn’t afraid to express herself in her most authentic way, especially during quarantine, because she misses playing shows for her fans, but she wants her fans to still have fun at the comfort of their homes. Thanks to her musical influences like producer A.G. Cook and late artist SOPHIE, she created vibrant musical projects like “how i’m feeling now” to let the world dance the tears away.