Hindsight is a powerful thing — and Charli XCX seems to be steeped in it in parts of her latest profile with The Guardian. The “Boys” singer opened up about where she is in her career and her journey to stardom. It’s clear from the extensive profile that Charli is in peak performance mode right now and is full control of her music and narrative, but there’s certain parts of her career she’s taking a harder look at. One of the most notable closer looks she takes in the interview has to do with her early days of fame, which include the massive success of “Fancy”. 

To Charli, the success of “Fancy” led to the super-bright, cheeky album Sucker, parts of which she says “feel fake” to her now. She went on to explain that “it was definitely a confusing experience, after ‘Fancy’, when things didn’t really go my way. I didn’t become, like, this huge big artist or whatever. That was definitely hard at points for sure.”

Charli didn’t go into full shade-mode with her criticism and call out specific songs or lyrics from the album, but the reflection is an interesting one for sure. It’s rare to see an artist say on the record that there are flaws in their music catalogue. But even though Charli’s likely more pleased with the music she’s making nowadays, she also admits it has turned her into a bit of a workaholic — another aspect of her life she gets very reflective about while chatting with The Guardian.

At one point, she opens up about how her life and her work are completely fused; everything is currently about the music. “I’ve always said I’m a workaholic, but I never actually knew what it meant until I was Googling it the other day. And fucking hell.…” she recalls during the interview, reviewing the symptoms which seem to apply to her. “[Y]ou don’t sleep well. That you swing between thinking of yourself as the absolute best in your field or the absolute worst, completely inadequate, a total piece of shit. That you turn every aspect of your life, people and places and fun, into work… Which is me. Like, every single thing is work for me,” she noted. 

The interview certainly shows us a side of Charli we rarely get to see: pensive, perhaps a bit moody, maybe a bit unsure of herself at times. But she’s human; it’s expected. Thankfully, she has her fans and the inevitable success that will come with the new music she’s been teasing on her Instagram lately.