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Comment by sfblah | Hacker News Reader

I had to go on Youtube to listen to some of the music mentioned here, as I'm pretty out of the loop on it. Given what I heard I honestly think we're basically at the point where AI can generate equivalent or even better music. It's just very simple and doesn't feel particularly innovative or noteworthy.

Point being, I think it's likely this person is one of the last pop stars.

Actually, as I'm writing this, I realized that probably the music being produced by this person is actually done by a computer. So, maybe she's in the first wave of totally artificial pop stars.

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> Actually, as I'm writing this, I realized that probably the music being produced by this person is actually done by a computer. So, maybe she's in the first wave of totally artificial pop stars.

Her main collaborator, co-creator and producer of many years is the artist AG Cook, who founded the label PC Music. He appears often in her music videos and gets mentioned in her lyrics. His own solo work plays a lot with pairing the artificial and the organic, taking the "slick" aesthetics of electronic pop to abrasive extremes and placing it next to vulnerability and gentleness.

This is my favourite piece of his work (both the song and the video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH2wQ5speuU

Charli's work or his might not suit your taste! But these are real people doing interesting stuff and playing with the form. It's not fake.

It makes me sad to think you have formed this opinion on her more than decade long career that spans a variety of genres and many collaborations based on a few brat songs you may have listened to

I'm open to changing my view! Please give some recommendations.

Music is a subjective thing, but what I like about Charli XCX is her albums have completely different sound from album to album, but are consistently fun to listen to. As if it puts you in a certain energetic mood. Listening to albums in full you can tell many tracks experiment with the genre. For example, she brought a niche thing like hyperpop to mainstream listeners in her prior 2 albums before brat.

These are some that I like from various albums:

https://youtu.be/CRYYBDG1b4Y

https://youtu.be/f-NS9hnmWN4

https://youtu.be/JsYJYUQgT7k

https://youtu.be/chSZCtLrgz8

https://youtu.be/5f5A4DnGtis

The novelty in pop music is not usually in the harmony. The novelty is usually in the presentation. The idea is that you hook the audience with familiarity (nostalgia) and then keep them with a novel expression of it. In recent years, this means really strange synth patches and vocal effects.

Maybe you could tell all her fans how stupid they are and shouldn't enjoy her music.

Why not save them from themselves with some of your approved recommendations?

With pleasure!

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