Charli XCX - Allergic To Love

Last year Charli XCX told Groundsounds that her second album is inspired by French ye-ye pop and new wave bands like The Waitresses, Bow Wow Wow and Flying Lizard. “It’s very fast the whole process and nature of the music is like a rush. It is also very quick and simple and kind of punk. It’s also inspired by The Ramones and it’s very kind of shouty but clever.  The hooks are really dumb but in a really clever way. For example Bow Wow Wow’s, I Want Candy is a very simple hook, but it is also amazing, that is kind of what I am going for. I’m recording it really fast, like I don’t want to spend time on it I want to bang it out, it is much more live. I feel like everyone is expecting me to make like an electronic record but this isn’t an electronic record it is a very live record.”

So there you are. If you’re an electronic pop kid who wanted Charli XCX on mainstream radio you’re probably going to be disappointed for now. If however the idea of throwing yourself around a sweaty punk club sounds like a lot of fun stay tuned in, for last night Charli XCX gave an idea of what might be about to come by uploading a cover of Allergic To Love by Swedish alt-rock band Snuffed by the Yakuza. Why this song? The missing link is Patrik Berger, no not the retired Czech football player, but the producer of Lana Del Rey’s Off To The Races, Robyn’s Dancing On My Own, a number of Icona Pop tunes and (of course) Charli XCX’s You’re The One. Google his name and Snuffed by the Yakuza and all will become clear.

This one’s also going to turn a lot of the blog cognoscenti who have supported Charli XCX through her modern synthetic dark pop sound first album phase off – they were probably hoping she’d go down the ‘slo-mo sultry r n b meets electronic soul route’ that seems to be everywhere at the moment (note: this is not a criticism of ‘slo-mo sultry r n b’ – just a fact that there’s a lot of it around right now). But with its frantic fuzzed-out riffing, aa-aa-choo sneeze lyrics and cheap d-i-y drum machine sound (anyone remember Carter U.S.M?) this one minute and thirty seconds of shoutiness seems to be Charli XCX putting two fingers up at the music biz and those who wanted her to be the next homogenised pop star. Charli’s doing what she wants here and it sounds like she’s having a shit load of fun.

Charli XCX - Allergic To Love