Switched on Pop - BONUS: Charli XCX and The Future of Music (with Dani Deahl)

Episode Date: September 22, 2019

The pace of new music releases these days is dizzying. Sometimes it’s like watching someone do a magic trick--we *swear* those songs weren’t there a second ago! But then, there they are, popping up in batches right out of thin air. Of course, behind each individual release sits months of decision-making by the artist: who to collaborate with and when, how to structure the musical product of that collaboration, what to call it, how to release it, when, and on what platform. The list is long, and each of those choices has a big impact on how we hear the song. The Verge’s Dani Deahl recently sat down with reigning Princess of Pop, Charli XCX, to discuss how she approaches those decisions, and how that approach is bucking long-established norms in popular music. In this special bonus episode of Switched on Pop, Dani rings up Charlie (not XCX) to recap that conversation and put Charli (XCX)’s artistry in context. Via Dani, we learn that for Charli collaboration is more than just an artistic choice; and release strategy is much more than a major label playbook. There’s a total freedom in the way Charli releases music, and we love it. Huge thanks to Dani for bringing us this peek into her world. Songs discussed:Charli XCX - Boom ClapCharli XCX, Christine and the Queens - GoneCharli XCX ft. Lizzo - Blame It On Your LoveLizzo - Truth HurtsCatch the rest of Dani’s conversation with both Charli/es in the newest episode of The Verge’s ‘Future of Music’ video series, We are conducting an audience survey to better serve you. It takes no more than five minutes, and it really helps out the show. Please take our survey here: https://voxmedia.iad1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_ewVXHPZIsQNlxCR?Source=note Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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a super-exit with Shopify. Empeas to start your period of month in Shopify. coms bar records. Hey everyone, Nate here. I want to share a few quick things about this bonus episode that you're about to hear.

The first, okay, we recorded this episode before Charlie X-X's album dropped, so you'll hear references to a, quote, upcoming album. That doesn't make any sense. Just ignore it. The album's out. Go listen. It's fantastic. Second, our guest for this episode, The Wonderful Danny Deal, called in from her apartment in Chicago, so you'll notice that the sound quality is a little rough. Finally, this is exciting. We have a survey. Okay, exciting. Maybe that's an overstatement. Let's rephrase that.

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Welcome to Switched on Pop. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. And today I am joined by a very special guest. Hi, I'm Danny Deal, and I cover music and technology for The Verge. And I host a video series called The Future of Music. So, Danny, you've brought to me an important story about a monumental shift in the way that music is released through one of today's most important artists. I think it's very interesting, especially because it's one of these things that's happened right under our noses for a very long time. It's been creeping in. Things have dramatically changed, but no one's really paused to think about how different the landscape is compared to a generation ago. Okay, so where were things and what's changed? Well, it used to be for a really long time that artists would save up all of their songs, and they would build up to this really big album release.

Maybe they would trickle out one single or a second single ahead of the album release, but really you would save it all up for this giant package. And that's not really happening anymore. There aren't really any rules, and that's because we can get music all the time for free. Yeah, I mean, I've definitely noticed this, that there are so many ways of releasing an album and or releasing music in general. It doesn't even have to be an album anymore. I think it's like only the biggest, most notable artists with the biggest album releases continue to do sort of traditional cycles of like single, single, video, video, video, album tour. But that's a rarity at this point. It is a rarity.

And that's partially because most people can't afford to be quiet for too long online. So now we're seeing that a lot of artists are just putting out singles. And they might be a part of an album, but they don't have to be. And you've pinpointed one artist in particular who exemplifies this method. Yes, is Charlie X-C-X, who you might know from a few hit songs, like maybe 1999 or Boys or BoomClap. I really love Charlie X-E-X. I particularly appreciate that we share a name, and I can be Charlie not X-E-X, it's my favorite thing. I actually think that we spoke about her song with Icona Pop, maybe on even like our third episode ever,

of the show. So she's been with us for a while, and I've been tracking her releases for quite a while. I think that her music and her collaborations are just constantly on the cutting edge. That's really true. And for the people that don't know that much about Charlie and her collaborations, she's really forward-thinking about the type of person that she likes to work with. And Charlie, you actually know a little bit about that history, because I think you're a fan of PC music. Yes, I love PC music. So PC music, is a label out of London that is almost like a performance art label where they are sort of almost like making commentary on pop music by making this like super hyper distilled version of pop with

characters and the musicians are often sort of in character and Charlie XX is known to collaborate a lot with both the label head AG Cook as well as has she collaborated with Sophie as well. She has. Yeah, another one of the sort of more prominent artists that have come out of PC music. But they're almost like, I think of them almost as like the war hall of pop music. Mm, that's a really good comparison. Right? Like they're like leading this like very important art scene. They're making commentary, but it's also commercial. And she is, I think, really one of the most important voices in that community. I agree. I think she puts up a lot of people on pedestals that don't necessarily get the shine that they normally would in the public spotlight. But

her album features tons of collaborations and some of those include Lizzo, Sky Ferreira, Troy Savan. It's a really strong, eclectic group of individuals that also presents a social point of view that I appreciate. What do you mean? I think she realizes that because of streaming, because of the fact that we have infinite options and there aren't traditional gatekeepers at radio stations the way they're used to be. There still are, but now people can go onto YouTube and they can go onto Spotify and they can go to SoundCloud and they can make their own choices without having someone put certain songs

in front of their face. And she realizes that this makes for a much more open and inviting landscape to expose people to music that they might not otherwise see or hear. And so a sort of collaborative approach and working with producers like from PC music and then mega stars like Lizzo as well as sort of lesser known stars as a way of being a part of a larger music community and conversation. I mean, obviously these people are amazing. People that she collaborates with like Cupcake are amazing. But she also uses her position within the music industry as a way to introduce these artists that might have a harder time through the traditional gatekeeping methods. Oh, interesting. Okay, so there's a couple of things going on here. She's both releasing music in different ways in terms of, well, you didn't even really talked about it. No, we didn't even talk about this before. Yeah, like her approach to releasing music is not only to collaborate and expose new artists, but it also serves her purpose as well. Yeah, so I had an opportunity to actually go to Charlie's house, not you Charlie, but Charlie XX, and talk to her about this very very,

very subject. I think the new landscape really lends itself to artists who are unique and have a different language and a very specific vision, the landscape lends itself to them being at the forefront, which I think is really good for pop music and for culture because it's not like a bunch of like white males at radio stations and record labels deciding like what the general public should listen to because they want to put their money and their investment and their backing into those people because they think that that will sell. So in that sense, I think streaming is good because it just opens everything up and everything becomes much more cross-pollinated and

there's, you know, room for so many genres and it's not about radio, which is great. This is interesting. So she's saying that by breaking down the barriers of gatekeeping that had existed in traditional radio, people pay more attention to artists that have something to say in the streaming economy. Well, they have the choice. Right. Okay, interesting. Yeah, you're right. They do have more choice. And so they can click and choose what they want to listen to.

But I guess my question for you about this, Danny, is, aren't there also just like a new set of gatekeepers? Right? You have like the people who control this playlist in Spotify? To a degree, sure. There are those. And I think we'll always have some form of gatekeepers. But there are more and more and more and more gatekeepers for more and more and more outlets,

which is certainly a better position than I'd like to get my song on the one pop station in my town that everyone listens to. Right. And then especially in the radio ecosystem, when you had the deregulation of the airwaves, the consolidation of Clear Channel and a handful of other super large corporate radio entities actually really seriously decreased the number of local DJs. So the gatekeeping was quite constrained during the late 90s era and in the aughts. And so, okay, this is interesting.

So streaming does give people more choice. And I guess if I'm able to choose what I'm interested in, I'm going to go and find the artist that has something to say that speaks to me. Right. We want to listen to what we identify with. Right. And you could just listen to stuff that you like. A lot of people do that.

But now, because everyone is very available on social media, you have the opportunity to become very close with an artist's personality as well. This is going way off topic. But to bring it back to the sort of release cycle and sort of collaborative approach that Charlie takes, the clip that she was sharing about the positive effects of breaking down gatekeepers means that she's also connecting with people that she's really interested in and collaborating with folks that she might not have otherwise found. 100%.

One of the collaborators on her album, Cupcake, her fans suggested that she'd check her out because they thought they would get along. And now they have a song together. Wait, that's so cool. That is very cool. So one thing I found notable about Charlie X, EX's releases, is that she always is introducing me to new people that have all kinds of amazing sounds.

Like, the track that she did with Christine in the Queens recently was... Phenomenal. Right? Mm-hmm. I think I first heard it via recommendation from a listener of the show. I'm curious from your perspective, you know, you've talked with Charlie and you've studied her music closely. Does she have sort of a method that she chooses in terms of who she collaborates with, how, why? Well, I think she's very conscious about what that person represents in terms of what they stand for, morally, ethically, who they are as a person, what type of fans do they have.

But at the end of the day, she really just goes toward the type of artist. that she would want to listen to every day. She's very intuitive with who she picks. Hmm. Are there any particular artists who do stand out to you in terms of the content message that they have to say with Charlie? The timing that Charlie X-EX had with her collaboration with Lizzo could not have been more spot on.

Mm, blame it on your love. I know that you can't control it, but my body like a switcher, just roll it. I'll make it you watch. Watch hands don't f*** this up. to catch millions, I ain't trying to catch feelings. It was so perfect. It came right at the time when Lizzo was really breaking online and everyone had to have a piece of her and know who she was

and watch her playing the flute on stage and the flute became cool again and everyone was having a moment and I felt great for all the people involved. So this gets back to what you were saying where the way in which you release music today, requires that you be constantly a part of the conversation. Like, you don't have time to disappear for a long period of time unless you're one of the biggest megastars in the world. That's probably on a business level what's happening. I think with Charlie, she's always intuitively felt that that's how she wants to operate in music.

She wants to put out things when she feels like it. She views what streaming has afforded artists as a freedom. rather than something she constantly has to catch up to. But you have to realize that she's also a very online person. Her name Charlie X-EX is her first MSN messenger's screen name from when she was a teenager. And she was discovered on Myspace. Myspace?

This doesn't add up because I feel like she's pretty young. She was discovered at 13. That's ridiculous. Yes. And she started playing raves in England. And that was where she got her start. She's been in the music business and she was a kid. Yes.

Wow. I think she grew up not knowing anything else. Having all of the freedom in the world to put out music and not have to wait for any of these barriers. Like signing a label deal. Well, the label feels like we need to build up my PR before we can release something. So that's going to be another six months. What am I going to do in the meantime? I guess I'll sit around and try and build up.

by Twitter. She can literally go online and drop a track and not tell anybody and it's fine. I want to release music when I feel like it and how I want to. And I find that particularly major labels who have a very strict structure of how they want artists to release music that just doesn't really work for me. And I don't think, especially now, it doesn't really work for my fans. I think fans are hungry for content and for music. from their favorite artists. And there's so much out there at the moment that they can get whatever they want all the time.

So it's very, everything's very like rapidly digested and people want more. Everything moves so much quicker now. I totally agree with Charlie, and it's not just because we share the same name. It's because, like, I think about my favorite album releases this year, and they stick with me for like, on a great album, like maybe two weeks,

but it's often like one week and then it's like, oh, there's something else that I'm interested in. And, you know, with Charlie X, X,X, you and I have been texting over the last couple of weeks every time a single comes out, we're like, there's another single. It's so exciting.

And she really is winning my attention in that way. And what's even more interesting is the way that she's releasing this stuff, which is with little heads up to the general populace. It's, hey, by the way, in a couple of days, I'm going to drop the single with a major artist. Have fun with that. It works. Traditionally, in music, the thought is that you would have to build up the press and the hype around all these drops that an artist would have.

And now people like Charlie just come along and say, decide to drop a remix with Diplo today. Hope you like it. If we live in an attention economy, one of the attentions you need to grab is that of the press, and yet there are fewer and fewer music journalists working. And so if you want to get their attention, I mean, you have to have the biggest, biggest, biggest thing. And why not just go directly to your fans when you have millions and millions of followers on social media? It makes sense. Part of the game is like, to get people's attention, you have to just like put out as much content as possible. But then you have the challenge of like, does any of it stick? And so when

you're competing against all the other things that could be heard, I think to her point, like it actually increases attention towards things that have, to artists that have something really potent to say, some unique sound, something powerful. And those are the songs that for me are the ones that end up getting on a repeat. And also, what's really interesting is because of this shortage in attention, we're seeing artists not only release music. more frequently, but it's actually changing the structure of how songs are written. Yeah, we've talked about some of this on the show. What are some of the things that you're noticing? What was the, oh, the pop interlude. That was one that they you'd picked up on, right?

Yeah, we called this the pop overture, right? This is the idea of pop overture. Yeah, yeah. So this was like, because your song only gets a royalty payment if people listen through the first 30 seconds, you have this challenge of like, how do I grab somebody and then make sure that they stick around. And in order to grab someone's attention quickly, what we've seen is more and more artists putting some form of the chorus first. But if you do that, you kind of have this problem. Like, a song wants to be an emotional journey, and you have to have an apex at some point. So if you put the chorus first, you might hook someone in, but you've sort of blown the biggest moment of energy immediately. And so where do you have to build to? And so what we've been hearing

is this idea that you grab like a little snippet of the chorus. Like actually like Truth Hurts by Lizzo has it. She just gives you like a moment of the chorus right at the beginning. So you're like hooked in and you want to hear it again and you've got to get past that 30 second mark hopefully. I think that's the intent. Yeah, it is a thing. And there are a lot of other tricks that Charlie herself uses.

She says that she doesn't use them for herself a lot, but she does a lot of songwriting for other artists. Right. And when she is writing for her, other artists, she likes to use every trick that she has. Like, chorus within like the first 30 seconds. No, like, weird self-indulgent intro, which basically all my songs I put on my album. Hook at the top in the intro.

Probably maybe even start with the chorus. Like, second verse, half as long. Probably like no pre-chorus, just after the second verse, no pre-chorus. Straightened to the chorus, done. I mean, you don't ever hit all of them. because, you know, no one's a complete psycho. Well, there are a few psychos. But, like, everybody is thinking about it, I find,

when you're, like, you know, making, like, trying to make, like, a big pop song. This, for me, really makes the sort of war hall comparisons stand out, where it's, like, you have this artist who is collaborating with a whole scene of people that are making work, which is both, like, sort of meta-commentary on popular, music, but also, like, clearly intentionally made as big pop hits. Like, it just, like, it exists as both at the same time.

And she's aware of all of the sort of, you know, like, secret formula techniques. And then realizing that if you just apply all of them all the time, you get, like, vanilla pop song, those songs that, you know, you and I forget the name of, and you go on to the next thing. She's very aware of all these little things that she can adjust in a song to make sure that people's attention is hooked right from the very beginning. But she also admits that she doesn't like to use that for her own songs and she likes to be self-indulgent. It's a tightrope and I feel for that. It's got to be difficult to know that you're writing music for people that are trying to listen and scoot through the tens of thousands of songs that are released every single day.

Yeah. And also create something meaningful. Right. She's conscious of this both at like the micro level and the macro level down to exactly where the hook should land within the first part of the song all the way to how you should release these songs so that they maximize attention and yet is still trying to make sure that her work has something to say. It's a, it really is a tightrope, as you say.

I also feel like it's important to point out that she's not the first to take on these techniques, right? Like releasing mixtapes, releasing a barrage of singles, I feel like that is thoroughly coming through the world of hip-hop. It is exactly coming through the world of hip-hop. There are tons of different genres that have existed on the mixtape format, on the singles format, basically on any format that is outside of the traditional major label album release cycle. Right. And it's just more rare to see it in pop. And it's even rare to see it as. the level of pop where Charlie XX exists.

Most people that are in pop that are superstars are still adhering to big album pushes and towards redefining themselves in eras. So like a la Taylor Swift. Perhaps. Yes. Alla Taylor Swift. But yeah, going back to your point about other genres and people prior to her that have done this, you're completely right in that other genres.

in that other genres certainly have existed and been built upon singles and mix tapes and all these other different methods of releasing music. There's a term for it now, and it's called the waterfall strategy. Have you heard of it? I have heard of the waterfall strategy, but I'm not sure everybody has. Do you mind breaking it down for us? Yeah, so the waterfall strategy, there's no big tricks here. It's basically you put out a single, and then you put out another single couple months later,

and then you put out another single a couple months after that, and eventually you accumulate enough singles that you can bundle them up and repackage them as an EP or an album with a couple new singles. Right. This is something that has been very common in other genres like hip-hop and dance for ages, but is relatively new when it comes to pop. And Charlie XX has known about it for a very long time. Personally, what I think we'll see more of is what the chainsmover.

just the waterfall release strategy. Oh my god, my favorite term. Wait, are you being facetious? Yes, I think it's just like, it's really funny because like whenever, like, I've heard that term for like three or four years now and like, it's like whenever I go to like a meeting with my label, or used to, not really now, but I'd be like, you know,

like, let's put some music out guys. And they'd be like, yeah, you know, we've been thinking about, this new strategy, it's called the waterfall strategy. And I'm like, great, like, what the fuck is that there? And they're like, well, you know, you drop one song, and then three months later, you drop another one. And then three months later, you drop another one. And that's the waterfall.

And I'm like, wow, okay, like, everybody got paid today. Great. Like, it's just, it's like, yeah, that's just dropping songs. Like, right? I love that. It's like if you have a fancy name for the thing, right, then like all of a sudden it's a thing that people can go to business meetings and talk about to try to explain what the artists are doing already. And like, and she's so thoroughly of the MySpace world, it's like, yeah, that's what I've done ever since I started making music. Right. Thanks for catching up.

You're a decade late. Sorry, executives. I mean, just personally, I love her fake exasperation at the meeting. Great. Everyone got paid today. Thank you for catching up on the latest internet trend. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But this strategy that she's so eloquently told us about is something that we are seeing more and more and more as a regularity and not even something that people are knowingly doing. It's just how people put music out now. You just put singles out and maybe you put a mixtape out and maybe you put out an album or maybe you don't. And all of that is fine.

It's also just entirely not that new as much as it seems new because there's still so, I think, as we're sort of joking about the sort of sometimes the slowness of an industry to catch up to a new reality. The single was basically killed off in the 90s by the recording industry because albums were a more successful way of making money. But singles were a primary method of music purchasing discovery interaction for many, many consumers. They were essential. And of course, we know that singles all came before the album. It wasn't until the long playing record that the single even existed. And it was an intentional effort to sort of kill off the single. Say you wanted to hear maybe one more time or something.

Like you got to buy the entire album because maybe it wouldn't be available as a single. I'm not sure if that one wasn't available, but there were many examples of songs. that were intentionally held from a single release to encourage you to buy the $15, $20 CD. Well, and do you know why that evolution happened? Why singles were popular at one point and then it got overtaken by the album and now we have a free-for-all?

I have no idea. It all has to do with the methods that are available for how we release music. What do you mean? So singles used to be popular way, way back in the day, 50s, 40s. Yeah.

And that was really, because vinyl at the time could only hold about three or four minutes of audio. You couldn't put out an album. If you put out an album, it would be a stack of records. Right. The album became popular when vinyl could hold more space. So as soon as artists could take advantage of having 30 minutes, 40 minutes, 50 minutes, on a single unit, then that's what they did.

And they could charge more for it because you could put multiple songs on one piece of vinyl instead of having one three-minute song. Yeah. That existed all the way through the cassette tape and then the CD, and then everything got shaken up when iTunes rolled along. And that was because it was the first time in a very long time that there was a platform where you could buy a single independent of buying the whole album. Oh, that's right.

Didn't Apple have to fight tooth and nail to be able to sell songs independently? Yes, artists didn't want that. They weren't used to it at that point. By that point, they'd had 40 years of pretty much only knowing how to release music through albums. Huh. Right. And then without having any choice or say in the matter, Apple strolls along and says, hey, we're going to have this marketplace and we're going to allow people to cherry pick whatever songs they want.

Right. And they can buy one song from your album. They could buy three or they could buy the whole thing. But it's up to the consumer and it's not up to the artist anymore. And that upset a lot of people. Yeah. ACDC pulled all of their music off of iTunes at the time. They said that they were not a singles band.

They were an albums band. And Estelle also had an album at the time that her label pulled off the platform for three weeks because they found that about 90% of the purchases were just of American Girl. Here's what this makes me think. It's like, haven't we always been singles listeners? Like, I feel like albums in reality are for fans. If I think about, like, the biggest pop acts that I know, let's say, like, I don't know, Madonna. I don't know Madonna's deep cuts.

I know all of her singles, right? I have albums of artists that are very important to me. I know their entire catalog for sure. But when you're talking, like, the breadth of popular music, say you're going to a wedding or a dance and people are playing tracks that everybody knows, those are singles. They're like the deep cuts are there for the, you know, when you're out spinning and DJing, you throw on some deep cuts in between to please those like super music heads. But in reality, like I feel like what we know are the singles of things that had gotten radio play.

And that is what people have always wanted. Yeah, I mean, but that you could also say that about any form of art. I'm not particularly into painters. But I know if we're going to bring up Warhol again, I know the soup can. Yeah, of course, right. I think every form of art has its moments that break through. into the mainstream and achieve this hyper level of popularity that saturated and everyone can get on the same train and roll along with it.

So to that point, Charlie X-E-X has been trying these really creative methods, borrowing, release structures from hip-hop and dance music, collaborating with some of the greatest artist in pop. Has she had that moment yet? Does she have her soup can moment, so to say? Oh my gosh, this is really hard for me to answer on behalf of someone else. The first time that I became aware of Charlie was through Boom Clap. I think that was a pretty seminal moment for her. I think she now is more ambivalent toward that song and maybe not in love with it the way that she used to be.

But that probably had the greatest mass appeal out of anything that was in her catalog. But I also think that now you don't. really need to have mass appeal in order to be a star. And I think that that's something that streaming has afforded a lot of people. She's certainly garnered my attention as a musician. And it seems as though I know that for a lot of indie musicians, streaming has been a very difficult transition away from album sales. But there seems to be this like not Taylor Swift level fame, but you can have like, you

can be Charlie X-E-X and have a really successful career moving across singles, working with lots of different artists, and have an important position and successful career, it seems. Oh, yeah. One thing that really struck me, actually, one of the reasons why I became hyper-interested in talking to Charlie about this subject is because I noticed in several different interviews, she very specifically said, you don't need a radio hit to be a success. and I thought that was very interesting and very plain spoken for an artist of her stature to say. And I wanted to know, I was like,

oh, this woman obviously has some feelings about the music industry. I'd like to know a little bit more about that. And sure enough, she's bucking every single trend, doing her thing, headlighting festivals like Pitchfork, is able to announce an album with three months notice and drop multiple singles without telling anybody and then go in a world tour. Yeah, I wonder to the degree that this is a replicable method. It sounds as though she just happens to really understand how to make music today.

The internet? Yeah, right. I love that. She really gets the internet. And you have a really fun conversation with Charlie XX on your series, The Future of Music, in which we actually continue this conversation. And I want to encourage people to go and check that out. Where can they find it?

They can find it on the Virge's YouTube channel. That's just YouTube.com slash the verge. Everyone should go check out your video on the future of music, on the Verge, on Charlie XX and her release cycle and all of her creative things to say about the music industry. Danny, this has been so much fun. Thank you for joining me. No, thank you. Switched on Pop is produced by Charlie Harding and Nate Sloan.

Huge thanks to our guest, Danny Deal. check out the Future of Music series. We'll throw a link to that in the show notes. It's totally awesome. Brandon McFarland is our fearless editor and engineer Megan Lubin, our production fellow. Our executive producers are Nashat Kerwa and Liz Kelly Nelson. We're a proud member of the Vox Media Podcast Network. You can find more episodes at switched on pop.com or any podcast player you like Spotify, Apple podcast app, on and on and on. We will release a new next week and reach out to us any time to tell us about what you're listening to on Twitter at Switch on Pop. Until then, thanks for listening. And one more important note, if you haven't yet,

please go to voxmedia.com slash pod survey. It's a quick, just a few questions about what you're listening to. That'll help us and all the good people at Vox serve you the best possible stuff. So once again, voxmedia.com slash pod survey.