Charli XCX and the Art of Cultivating a Hardcore Fanbase

“You have to starve the audience, drip feed the tap, to get the viewer into this feverish state where they actually want more rather than serving them this endless buffet of stuff.”

“We’ve been chasing you, trying to catch up with you,” Zane Lowe says at the top of his new interview with main pop/dance girl Charli XCX.

I was pre-seated ahead of the interview, as I would be with any Charli offering, but was especially compelled after watching by how much of their 50-minute conversation was spent talking about process — and not just the artistic part, but everything that comes after that.

“I talk about music in terms of marketing and campaigns more than I do music sometimes, but it’s the part I’ve always been really interested in, even more than the music.”

I think there are very few artists who talk about and can articulate the role that marketing plays in determining the success of their careers. I realize success is a relative term, but no matter the goal post that defines “success,” reaching your audience, however wide it may be, is critical, and marketing is the vessel by which artistic expression is delivered. Charli, deservingly so, gets a lot of attention and acclaim for her music, but she’s also an incredibly savvy businessperson who both understands and — perhaps more importantly — respects the long game of a career as an entertainer.

In response to Lowe’s initial “how are you?” at the outset of the interview, she gives the kind of answer that inspires those listening to treat this more akin to a master class than a standard chat.

“I’m sort of hanging on by a thread in ways… but I also think this has been the total opposite of an overnight success story, so I think I am prepared in ways for what’s happening right now in terms of the pace of things and in terms of my level of engagement with reality vs. fantasy. It’s easier for me to take a lot of things with a pinch of salt because of how long I’ve been doing this for.”

The interview had barely begun. At that point, I knew it was time to start taking some notes. Here are some of the stand-out bursts of wisdom offered up by Ms. XCX.