Review Summary: party on
‘how i’m feeling now’ is intertwined with a very certain time in human history where things feel uncertain, up-in-the-air, and un-tethered. People have been separated from family, close friends, significant others. Maybe they wake up restless, drifting, depressed - over 35 million Americans have applied for unemployment in the past two months. Creatives using this time to make content about this situation, however earnest, run the risk of coming off as hackneyed and trite.
‘how i’m feeling now’ manages to be neither of these things. Because in a time where people are feeling separated and restless, Charli XCX has conjured up an album cycle with the full intent of making sure everyone felt involved.
‘how i’m feeling now’ is a quarantine album - most certainly the biggest musical project I’ve seen come out of this whole situation we find ourselves in. It was made over the course of a month with close collaborator and PC Music extraordinaire A.G. Cook. In attempting to be as transparent as possible with her creative process, Charli hosted Zoom calls with fans to workshop lyrical ideas. She played rough demos of beats Cook (and co.) had conjured up over Instagram Live. She constantly gave life updates on social media. To further the themes of fan collaboration, a music video for first single ‘forever’, featuring footage from hundreds of fans, was put together and released within a week. Fans got to vote on which single artwork they liked the best for official use. A track on her previous full length got a sequel, and a leaked fan-favorite has finally seen the light of day in the form of the effervescent ‘party 4 u’, a track that rivals her own ‘Track 10’ in using repetition to reach satisfying conclusions.
‘how i’m feeling now’ is about love, isolation, memory, trying to stay sane in the jaws of a collective cabin fever, clubbing, mental health, and self doubt among other things. Charli has been blessed enough to spend these strange times with her S/O, and appropriately a good portion of the lyrics relate to him.
‘Only threw this party for you.’ ‘Seven years it’s been you and I, always.’ ‘I’ll love you forever, even when we’re not together.’ But it is about all the other things too - things that everyone can relate to right now. C2.0 (the sequel to Click from the previous album) drops the braggadocious features and opts for reminiscing about friends who she hasn’t seen in too long. Simple lines like
‘I miss them every night, I miss them by side’ ? Charli isn’t the greatest lyricist, but that just hits different right now. The last three songs are all about partying in different contexts - one about a private party for a little someone special, one lightheartedly longing for the clubs you went to before it all went to ***, and one...Well, the lyrics of ‘visions’ aren't actually about clubbing, but its last half definitely invokes it in how it sounds.
‘how i’m feeling now’ sounds like a screwdriver obliterated the innards of a server room, and those innards along with the screwdriver were thrown into a vat of bubblegum. It is arguably Charli’s tightest work, in no small part because of A.G. Cook’s heavy involvement. Short of just one track, everything on this album flows well, sounds great, and has some kind of instrumental moment that'll catch your ear. Songs wind up and momentarily sputter out. They splice their own chorus’ or completely transform themselves. Album closer ‘visions’ is the song that does this the very best. The first half of the song is a mid-tempo build up with lyrics about seeing visions of her being with her boyfriend in the future and everything being alright. But just before the two minute mark the song completely flips itself around. The payoff isn't just a drop - it's being instantly transported to a warehouse rave. The synth line and the beat are constantly shifting for the last two minutes, twisting into something new every time one or the other changes. The whirlwind of noise, the pulsating beat, the euphoric synths - all reminiscent of a time before, and perhaps a look ahead as well. In the future everything is alright, you’re in love with your forever boyfriend-girlfriend, and you’re partying like you’ve never partied before.
