Charli Xcx Xcx World -spike Stent- - This Act... //top\\ Official

In the sprawling, chaotic, and fiercely innovative discography of Charli XCX, there is a ghost. It floats between the major label polish of Sucker (2014) and the hyperpop manifesto of Pop 2 (2017). Hardcore angels (her fanbase) refer to it in hushed tones, leaking low-quality mp3s onto Reddit and SoundCloud. Officially, it doesn’t exist. But to those who were paying attention in 2016 and early 2017, XCX World —produced in part by the legendary mixer Spike Stent —was supposed to be the album that broke Charli XCX in America.

If XCX World had been released in 2017 with Spike Stent’s polished mixes, it might have been a compromise. Instead, Charli responded with spite. She retreated to a Airbnb with A. G. Cook and produced the Number 1 Angel mixtape in two weeks, followed immediately by the genre-defining . Charli XCX XCX WORLD -Spike Stent- - This Act...

Listen to the leaked original demo of "Taxi" (recorded during these sessions) versus the Spike Stent mix. The demo sounds like a video game breaking. The Stent mix sounds like a Ferrari crashing into an arcade. He gave the chaos a chassis. It was pop music that had been put through a hydraulic press. In March 2017, disaster struck. A hacker obtained the entire XCX World album files, including Spike Stent’s final mixes, and released them online. Charli called it "devastating." Officially, it doesn’t exist

The lead single for XCX World was Released in October 2016, the song was a brass-heavy, liquor-soaked banger about extending the night until the morning. It featured a verse from Lil Yachty and was supposed to be her crossover moment. Instead, Charli responded with spite

But the leak wasn't the only killer. "After The Afterparty" had peaked at number 29 in the UK and failed to chart in the US. Atlantic Records panicked. They looked at the leak, looked at the numbers, and decided to pull the plug.