Looking back at Charli xcx’s DIY pandemic album ‘how i’m feeling now’ 5 years later

CEBU, Philippines — 2024 is considered by pop culture enthusiasts as the “year of the brat” thanks to Charli xcx’s smash-hit, Grammy-nominated album. Who knew that a simple cover art with a Pantone green background and a stretched-out ‘brat’ text would spark an internet phenomenon?

Usually associated as a noun to describe an ill-mannered child, Collins Dictionary offered an alternative definition when declaring “brat” their word of the year —using it as an adjective to describe someone with a “confident, independent, and hedonistic attitude.”

That’s mostly true. The 15-track album features songs like “Von dutch,” “360,” and “Mean girls” that live up to Charli’s signature hedonistic flair. But it also includes more vulnerable tracks like “Sympathy is a knife,” “Apple,” and “I think about it all the time,” where she confronts insecurities, reflects on inheriting her parents’ worst traits, and hints at possibly ending her clubbing days and going off birth control to start a family with her fiancé and The 1975’s drummer George Daniel — who is one of the album’s producers.

It’s important to note that the fame Charli, 32, is experiencing now wasn’t an overnight success. The ethos of “brat” — a confident, hedonistic woman with a lot of emotional baggage — would not exist without the album she created during the pandemic: “how i’m feeling now,” which recently turned five years old and has a track currently trending on TikTok and climbing the charts.

A DIY album during quarantine

Five years ago, Charli was in a different place in the pop culture zeitgeist. Most of her hardcore fans (known as Angels) were content with her not reaching “main pop girl” status, as long as she continued making music on her own terms.

The British popstar wanted to go on a hyperpop route with the genre’s pioneer A.G. Cook, as her commercial hits “Boom Clap” and her feature on Iggy Azalea’s “Fancy” didn’t feel creatively fulfilling.

She had to find common ground between her vision and the demands from her label, Atlantic Records, resulting in her 2019 studio album “Charli,” which had a more refined sound compared to the raw hyperpop of her mixtapes “Number 1 Angel” and “Pop 2.”

That creative tension inspired her next project — a half-parody of herself that imagined what would happen if she fully gave in to her label’s demands, and also served as a way to finish her recording contract.

While working on the album, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the world into lockdown. Like everyone else, Charli quarantined at home in Los Angeles with her then-boyfriend Huck Kwong and her two managers.

Eventually, she released the album titled “Crash” in 2022. But during the early months of lockdown, making that album remotely wasn’t feasible.

While artists like The Weeknd, Dua Lipa, and Lady Gaga had to re-strategize how to release their finished records during the pandemic, Charli decided to start fresh. Out of nowhere, she tweeted a Zoom link, announcing to fans that she would be making a brand-new album and releasing it six weeks later.

Aptly titled “how i’m feeling now,” the album captured her thoughts during quarantine. It also marked a return to her hyperpop roots, mainly working remotely at her home with A.G. Cook, who was quarantining in Montana, and collaborating with other producers.

What surprised fans was that she condensed a usually year-long album rollout into just six weeks, complete with photoshoots, music videos, and press interviews.

Her DIY approach was fully transparent. She played demos and brainstormed lyrics on Zoom and Instagram Live, crowd-sourced artwork for her pre-release singles for streaming platforms, and even gave fans stems to remix songs themselves.

The process was documented in “Charli XCX: Alone Together,” which premiered at film festivals in 2021 and was released digitally the following year.

Much of the emotion in the album revolves around her seven-year, on-and-off relationship with Kwong. The documentary revealed that quarantine marked their longest time spent together continuously, prompting deep reflection.

The album’s fourth track, “7 years,” captures how Kwong had always been her muse — someone she both adored and resented. “Seven years, and it’s been you and I, always / Really complicated, we’re too deep, babe,” she sings.

The next track, “detonate,” explores her fear of heartbreak, to the point that she hurts him first as a form of self-defense. “enemy” plays on the phrase “keep your enemies closer,” questioning whether her boyfriend is actually her enemy.

But not all tracks are envious. “claws” is an ecstatic ode to spending time with him, while “forever” explores the long-distance nature of their relationship, believing that the pandemic could somehow strengthen them.

“forever” and “claws” got music video treatments. The former used fan-submitted footage to reflect longing for normalcy once quarantine is over. The latter, more elaborate, featured green-screen footage that included Charli dancing as well as making out with Kwong in full-body green suits.

Charli later released the raw footage of “claws”, inviting fans to insert their own green-screen edits — resulting in absurd memes, such as Toni Collette’s monologue from "Hereditary" and NSFW clips inserted behind Charli, which makes sense given her largely queer fanbase.

No Charli album is complete without party songs. But here, the party songs are more introspective. Tracks like “anthems” and “c2.0” reflect her yearning for nightlife and togetherness, laced with pandemic melancholy.

“I just wanna go to parties / Up high, wanna feel the heat from all the bodies,” she sings on “Anthems” — a lyric submitted by a fan. In the chorus, she adds: “Finally, when it’s over / We might be even closer.”

While most tracks were created during lockdown, one exception was “party 4 U,” first previewed at parties in 2017 but completed during the pandemic sessions. It became a cult favorite among Angels, who long hoped for its official release.

“party 4 u” is an upbeat yet melancholic song about realizing her partner (not Kwong at the time) didn’t love her back that much. Its outro, where she repeats “party on you” that sounds like “part of you knew” — indicating that Charli somehow knew that the person she threw a party for wouldn’t show up.

The song recently gained traction on TikTok after an edit of drag queen Coco Montrese looked like she was lip-syncing to its rapid-fire second verse: “You could watch me pull up on your body / Like it's summer, take my clothes off / In the water, splash around and get you blessed by holy water”

That verse was translated into Tagalog by TikToker Ysabelle Cuevas, drawing mixed reactions from netizens who were unsure if the song warranted a translation. Ironically, a Bisaya version by Katik, done as a joke, received a better response.

Meanwhile, the song’s outro has gone viral as audio for fan edits of TV shows and movies such as “Normal People” and the JaDine film “Never Not Love You.” It’s also used by people to share their own “party for you/part of you knew” moments, similar to the trend sparked by Cup of Joe’s “Multo.”

Charli managed to accomplish the entire six-week process, releasing the album on time. It was accompanied by cover art showing her in white undies, holding a handheld camera labeled “Charli cam” used for the documentary, reflecting the album’s DIY roots.

The album was met with critical acclaim. Fans and reviewers praised its raw, honest songwriting and innovative production, which showcased Charli at her most authentic, even under a tight deadline.

 Five years after the album

Charli looked back at this era with mixed feelings. In a 2022 interview with Rolling Stone, she said she found the documentary hard to watch now that she and Kwong had broken up.

“It feels like a different time, a different lifetime. Honestly, it’s hard to watch myself be so upset. Also, unfortunately, me and my partner at that time are no longer together. The whole thing is really emotional for me. I probably won’t be watching it again,” she revealed.

While it may be hard for her to revisit those intimate moments with her ex-boyfriend captured in the docu, it’s very in-character for Charli to look ahead rather than dwell on the past, especially when it comes to her music.

“I am never very present or in the moment because I am always thinking about what’s next. It’s never enough,” she said in the docu.

That mindset reveals a lot about Charli as an artist, and likely played a role in why “brat” became such a successful record that allowed her to headline arena tours and festivals like Coachella. She continues to evolve in ways that feel true to her, without becoming redundant in her artistry.

But one part of the “how i’m feeling now” era she is happy to revisit is “party 4 u.” Thanks to the song’s resurgence on social media, she released the music video five years later on the album’s fifth anniversary.

In the video, the contrast to her original DIY approach is clear. This is brat-minded Charli revisiting the world she inhabited five years ago, but in a different context —wandering through an empty, remote town and melancholically reflecting on herself, as a massive billboard of her image towers over the space.

She strips down to her white undies (possibly a callback to the album cover) and tears the billboard apart, eventually setting it on fire. There’s much to interpret— whether it’s self-deprecation, rejection of the past, or a symbolic act of personal evolution.

Whatever the message may be, many Angels felt the release of the music video was worth the five-year wait and found it profound in the context of her artistic and personal evolution.

It’s hard to imagine Charli xcx earning her first Grammy nominations and reaching 35.6 million monthly listeners on Spotify without this DIY album she made during the pandemic that gave fans an intimate look at her creative process.

Perhaps it’s finally time that “how i’m feeling now,” and its track “party 4 u,” get the flowers they deserve from those who only discovered Charli after “brat.”