music is never done
or, Charli's infinite afterlife
Learning to DJ has profoundly reshaped my understanding of how music works. Deejaying is a multifaceted creative practice that blends listening, curating, improvisation, and direct engagement with the audience. It has allowed me to more deeply explore the architecture of dance music. Modern DJ tools allow us to loop, isolate, resample, repitch and blend musical material all in real time, and in dialogue with the listener.
Any DJs reading this are surely rolling their eyes at what a basic observation this is. Sonic appropriation in the forms of deejaying, sampling and remixing has had a rich cultural history, about which I probably know less than the average person. I may be later than most to this epiphany, but that might account for its impact. I am learning, not only to DJ, but how to apply deejayistic methodologies to my practice an artist/producer. For the DIY music maker, approaching your own work with a DJ's mindset might help to infuse your music with new kinds of meaning and captivate audiences in new ways.
I have often encouraged new producers to prioritize finishing their music. This has a whole host of practical benefits, but the truth is that, even when your work is finished, it can always remain a subject of reinterpretation.
No one exemplifies the infinite afterlife of a song better than—your queen and mine—Charli XCX.
Open Sources
Charli's 2017 mixtape, Pop 2, is a collection of weird adventures in experi with collaborators ranging from Carly Rae Jepsen to Mykki Blanco. The closing track, "Track 10," features a traditional verse-chorus structure delivered over evolving club beat with plucky synth arpeggi and squeaky, bubbly vocal chops. The arrangement takes a few central themes in a number of different directions over the course of its 5 and half minutes. Like so many other songs on Pop 2, it feels like an inquiry into many possible configurations of voice synth and beat, but not exactly a ‘song.’ Positioned last on the album and given an unassuming title, it suggests a preliminary sketch or underpainting for a future project.
The song assumed its next form two years later as ‘Blame it on your love,’ from Charli’s 2019 album, Charli. Here, the lyrics and melodies are the same, but the production and arrangement are much more inline with the dominant tropes of radio pop at the time. The reworked version is a tight 3 minute-long pop dancehall pastiche with a new lineup of producers—including Mikkel Erikson of Startgate (Rihanna, Drake, Sia, Wiz Kalifa)—and a verse from Lizzo. These are wildly divergent musical treatments, each describing a different tonality of the song’s lyrics.
Charli's willingness to revisit her catalog and release multiple pieces with the same material underscores an apparent indifference to the established categories of ‘demo’ and ‘finished song’; an understanding that music is an evolving process rather than a static product, even after publication.
The Brat Rollout
Charli’s most recent album, Brat channels the energy of 2000s rave culture into a hypermodern pop soundscape. It was created with some of her regular collaborators like A.G. Cook, SOPHIE, and Finn Keane, as well as new ones, like her fiancé George Daniel (of The 1975), The Dare, Gesaffelstein, and Hudson Mohawke. It is a beautifully cohesive record—equal parts raw, sleazy club beats, and hyperpop twinkles—and a precise distillation of Charli’s artistic voice.
The Brat era began with a carefully crafted sense of intrigue. Charli teased the project on social media with cryptic posts and snippets of the lead single, "Von Dutch," released on February 29, 2024. The single, with its aggressive club sound and nostalgic nods to Y2K culture, set the tone for what would become a summer-defining album.
Two more singles followed: "360," accompanied by a celebrity-laden music video designed for virality, and "Apple," whose choreography briefly dominated TikTok. Brat extended beyond streaming platforms into the physical world. Charli used a brick wall in Greenpoint, Brooklyn as an evolving signage canvas, announcing each moment in simple text using the Brat font. She did a surprise DJ set in front of the Brat wall, and another for Boiler Room, where she played much of her own unreleased remixes and edits. In these public performances, the act deejaying functioned as a kind of metonym for her artistic activity and promotional strategy.
By the time the full album dropped, she already had everyone's attention. Then, 3 days later, she released Brat and It's the Same but There's Three More Songs So It's Not. This playful approach to the deluxe album format highlighted her self-awareness and DJ-inspired method of releasing music.
Work It Out on the Remix
Perhaps the most innovative aspect of the Brat era was its embrace of remix culture. Instead of including features on the original album, Charli released alternate versions with features all on a separate album. In October, she unveiled Brat and It's Completely Different but Also Still Brat, a remix album featuring a diverse cast from the pop and electronic music worlds: Robyn, Troye Sivan, Billie Eilish, Yung Lean, Bon Iver, Julian Casablancas, and just about everyone else. Each remix reimagined its source material in a totally new way, allowing the songs to stand on their own, as distinct works in themselves.
In Brat, Charli sets up a conflict with an unnamed rival popstar in ‘Girl, So Confusing.’ People speculated that that person might be Lorde (likely a rumor fabricated by Charli’s PR mastermind). Then, Lorde appeared on the song’s remix with a verse that further complicated the narrative of the original. Her audience got to see real life ideas and situations get worked out in real time.
Her rework of “Everything is Romantic” is an etherial-by-definition duet with Caroline Polachek featuring a simulated phone call between the two. Charli takes a darker and less bombastic attitude in this one than she did with the original, asking “have I lost perspective? Everything’s still romantic, right?”
This approach isn’t just great promotional strategy (though it most certainly is that). It derives from Charli’s unique orientation towards her own catalogue of work. Everything is simultaneously radio ready, and maybe just malleable source material for the next iteration.
DJ Ideas
I encourage everyone to finish their music as quickly as possible. This, I find, is generally a good way to keep creativity moving, to avoid demo-itis or unneccessary emotional attachments to unfinished work. Finishing music is a worthy goal for the producer because, whether the music gets released or not, practicing the final stages of the creation is valuable for all future creations. And what we learn from Charli is that, just because a song is finished doesn’t mean the conversation is over. I suggest we begin to think about finishing work as a mode of setting our ideas free. We work to finish songs, so that they can circulate, accumulate new meanings and exist in new contexts.
Here are some things to keep in mind for the DIY musician:
Distrokid allows unlimited uploads for a single yearly fee, meaning you can publish as many things as you want without paying any extra.
New tracks can arrive on streaming platforms within 2 days of being made, and they can be removed just as quickly
Spotify for artists allows you to to change any releases cover art (Charli changed all her other album covers to fit the Brat format as a promotional strategy for the album)
Tools like Serato Studio allow you to seamlessly isolate stems of any song, which drastically expands your ability to remix or edit existing published material.
These tools might be helpful if you want to take a page out of Charli’s book and treat your own past work with a deejayistic attitude. All music is malleable material. Your music is yours to destroy and reconfigure as you wish. Audiences enjoy works in progress, and dynamic interaction.
The Song Is Never Done
Some might find the ever present Brat aesthetic to be tiresome at this point. Charli has dominated every possible corner of popular media. I write this letter from a hotel in Scotland where I travelled in order to see her play an arena show! I find Brat exciting because it’s a blueprint for how music can move through the world in a flexible way. Charli’s newfound status as a cultural icon relies on her willingness to continually reinterpret her own work and tailor it to the present context.
If you're holding onto a track, uncertain if it's ready for release, here's my advice: release it. Let it live. Let it evolve. A song's life begins after you let it go, not when you deem it perfect. The song is never done—and that is what is most exciting about doing music.
Thank you for reading.
What I’m listening to
10 new songs, updated weekly