Charli XCX Has Finally Found Her Sound: Hip-Hop Beats With 'Ethereal Weirdness'

Most artists sign to a record label, work on an album and release said album within a year or two -- it's the whirlwind treatment of artists that's become a protocol in the age of the Internet. But, for UK goth-pop artist Charli XCX, it's been approximately five years since she signed to a label and she's still working on her debut full-length. And yes, she's quite painfully aware of this.

When asked what the latest update on the record was, because it's been quite some time in the making, the 20-year-old singer sighs and replies, "Fuck, tell me about it."

"It's weird because I've been doing it for so long that I'll think it's done, but then a month later I'll be like, 'Wait, I need to add so much more,'" Charli tells Spinner. "It feels like I've got an endless time period, but recently, I've been realizing that I don't."

Charli truly believes that she's nearing the end of the process, though, and even throws around an early 2013 release date in the air as she discusses the direction she's settled with, in terms of the overall sound she's cultivated through the years.

"Ever since I wrote 'Stay Away' a year and a half ago, I really found what I really wanted my record to sound like and I think it's gone down that road," explains Charli. "It's kind of black and mystical, but I want to keep the elements of hip-hop drums mixed in there with this ethereal weirdness -- it's the two sides of me and what I listen to. If I wasn't involved in this and heard it, I would be like, 'This is a fucking good album!'"

Having been signed since the age of 15, emerging fashion lightning rod admits to feeling like "some old lady in the industry" sometimes, but that doesn't mean she feels any wiser.

"I feel like I'm still my age, I'm not trying to be a 25-year-old," Charli says. "I'm still a kid and that's what I'm all about, being a weirdo."

The high school dropout/unlikely music veteran then goes on to explain how she's still a kid.

"What are kid things? Getting wasted and fucked up? Because I do that," she says. "And I was never a 'prom kind of girl. That freaked me out. I like prom movies. My ideal prom would be like what happens in Jawbreaker. I just find that shit so funny... not death, though! That's not funny."