10 years ago, Vroom Vroom predicted Charli xcx’s — and pop music’s — future

In Charli xcx’s catalogue, there is before SOPHIE and after SOPHIE. The starlet crafted some of her best mixtapes and songs with the enigmatic producer. Despite their chemistry, the 2016 EP Vroom Vroom is the only official project they collaborated on front to back. (We lost XCX World, the leaked and subsequently scrapped album that featured more of their collaborations including “Taxi,” a song I have annoyed all my friends by playing over and over on SoundCloud.) A love letter to the club scene and collaboration itself, Vroom Vroom was a sudden supernova that expanded on the squelching industrial sounds Charli xcx and SOPHIE had been tinkering with. It was prophetic in the way it pushed club aesthetics into the mainstream.

It’s not just that we wouldn’t have brat without the Vroom Vroom EP — we wouldn’t have modern pop music. SOPHIE’s bubbly industrial production shifted the playing field and introduced the world to “hyperpop.” In her universe, there were no rules. Artists did not always have to adhere to traditional release schedules, top-heavy albums, or a singular aesthetic. Instead, they could drop records with little lead up and less scrutiny from their labels, allowing for more creative control over their own presentation and output.

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By the time Vroom Vroom came out, Charli xcx had already risen to fame as a chimera who could flit between the slinky synth-pop of “Nuclear Seasons,” bold and irreverent guest spots on “I Love It” and “Fancy,” and the highly memed “Boom Clap.” But uniting with SOPHIE opened up a completely new and fearless side to Charli. She wasn’t afraid of commercial failure or avant-garde experimentation, as SOPHIE brought harder and harder beats. The EP alone features multiple key players alongside SOPHIE like PC Music stalwarts Hannah Diamond and A. G. Cook. From its title track, “Vroom Vroom,” to “Trophy” and “Secret (Shh..),” it’s a manifesto for celebrating the joys of hedonistic partying and staying out late until the sun comes up, a utopian glimpse at the wee hours of the morning fueled by drugs and liquor.

When Charli xcx plays “Vroom Vroom” live, the entire crowd falls in line, ready for a visceral three minutes of exuberant catharsis. The song is simple: an ode to the joy of driving around town with your girls. Whether she’s singing about a white Mercedes or lavender Lamborghinis, cars have always been an important part of Charli’s mystique, not unlike the work of Pippa Garner or John Chamberlain. Crashing them, fucking them, rolling up in them, calling them for unruly boys. The pounding anthemic chorus of “Vroom Vroom” commands just one thing: “Let’s ride.”

SOPHIE and Charli made industrial, slinky, hard electronic music approachable. Over the years, learning the words to the verses on “Vroom Vroom” has become an achievement, a sign that one is on the right path. “All my life / I’ve been waiting for a good time,” she croons. For Charli, partying is the antidote to longing. The lonely moments go hand in hand with the sexy, squelching highs of the night.

Not everyone got it. Contemporary critics were mixed. Reviewers were worried they were being “bamboozled.” Laura Snapes panned the record, writing, “Is she sending up pop’s shallow triumphalism? Or reinforcing it?... Vroom Vroom just sounds dead behind the eyes.” Drowned in Sound claimed that “XCX lacks the finesse to turn this into anything beyond a mindless massage.” But the long lists of colors and glitchy, skittering beats of the earnest “Paradise” or the slinking “Secrets (Shh)” were a career reset for Charli in retrospect. In 2021, Pitchfork noted the error of their original review: “To a certain, very melodramatic, very online type of Twitter user, there was nothing more homophobic than our humble publication giving a 4.5” to the short album.

This was music for party girls with nasal polyps and their fag hags, not bimbos and normies. In spite of her newfound mainstream success and Grammy performances, Charli xcx has always been for girls who don’t know how to behave, refusing to go home before the sun comes up. “Good girls shouldn’t party… / get home, be in bed by 2,” she sings on “Secrets (Shh).” Cheating, bumps in the bathroom, and furiously bouncing tits weren’t a shtick, they were the main event.

The point wasn’t to look cool, even if that was occasionally a chic byproduct of her brazen attitude and subversive cast of characters. Vroom Vroom celebrated the community that Charli xcx came up in, one of new rebellious voices. For years, Charli xcx collected club darlings like Allie X, Yaeji, Kim Petras, Troye Sivan, Brooke Candy, MØ, Cupcakke, Tove Lo, among others. Not in the style of Taylor Swift’s 2010s poptimist girl group, but like a carny collecting outcasts who couldn’t quite break the Billboard 100.

The camaraderie that Charli xcx exemplified drove me and my friends out of the house and into the Brooklyn nights to find the best parties we could. I saw Charli xcx play live a handful of times, including a raucous show in the basement of a hotel. Only a few years later, I was hindered by twinks without any sense of spatial awareness. Still, the grindset remained. “Trophy” provided the mantra: “Take the crown, shut it down, 'bout to steal the show/ Shooting star, I'm a boss, Marilyn Monroe.” Sure, it was sometimes unclear if the party was mirroring vacuity or satirizing it. But for a time, even nihilistic partying served as a release.

Projects like Vroom Vroom and brat are career highlights because it’s refreshing to see someone be honest about their desires. Tired of sheen and perfection, listeners reward the fretting, nervous envy, and messy girl antics of stars like Charli xcx. Gone are the days of Blair Waldorf and clean girls, we want crashout-era Lindsay Lohan, Lily Allen, and a free Britney. Recklessness is in. “Try to catch me, but you’re too slow,” Charli winks to the good girls on her way to the afterparty.