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On April 6, 2020, less than a month after Los Angeles went into lockdown, pop star Charli XCX invited her fans onto a Zoom call for a special announcement. After spending the last few weeks understandably struggling to acclimate to the anxieties of a shut-down world, she’d decided to give herself a project to keep busy: make a new album, just six months after the release of 2019’s acclaimed Charli. To guarantee it take up almost every second of her newfound free time, she was only giving herself five weeks to complete it. Knowing her fans might also be looking for something to work on during a period of unknowns — while also implicitly wanting people to hold her accountable — Charli noted that she’d be opening up her creative process like she never had before, too: hosting Instagram Live sessions for lyrical brainstorms; requesting song remixes, singles art, and music-video help as needs arose.

Mostly produced with longtime collaborator A.G. Cook, the resulting album, How I’m Feeling Now, endures as one of few still-thrilling early COVID-era works. It’s clearly informed by the isolated conditions under which it was made, but it isn’t unduly burdened by them. Punchy and forward-thinking, with the right amount of emotional rawness, it sounds like music meant to be cranked in a bedroom turned into a world by a seemingly indefinite quarantine. 

Read the full piece at 425.