For nearly a decade, Charli XCX has pushed against the tired trends of contemporary pop music to carve out her own sound and style. A professional songwriter devoted to crafting perfect, speaker-frying party music, she's made her albums and mixtapes FOMO-inducing events unto themselves, filling their credits with avant-garde pop collaborators ranging from the late producer SOPHIE to filthy rapper CupcakKe.
Her latest, "New Shapes," brings in Caroline Polachek and Christine and the Queens for a sugary, '80s-inspired pop song. Indebted to the synths and 808 beats of freestyle girl groups like Company B and The Cover Girls, "New Shapes" twists its bubbly, side-pony pastiche into something more mournful. "All night, all day, we can fall in love in new shapes, new ways," Charli sings. "When the morning comes, I'm sorry I stayed."
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