Taylor Swift had a tremendous pair of openers for her Reputation tour last year, a duo of pop stars who have made some iconic music of their own: Camila Cabello and Charli XCX. Charli talked about the experience in a new Pitchfork feature, and she said that her takeaway from it is that she is done being an opening act.
Charli said that she appreciates the opportunity, but that it perhaps wasn’t the most artistically fulfilling thing in the world: “I’m really grateful that [Swift] asked me on that tour. But as an artist, it kind of felt like I was getting up on stage and waving to 5-year-olds.” She went on to say that after touring with Swift, she realized she never wanted to be an opening act again, saying, “I’ve done so much of it, and it really cemented my status as this underdog character, which I like now. But I need to just own my own f*cking sh*t finally.”
Elsewhere in the piece, Charli talks about how her mind wanders when she’s not busy, saying, “If I go on holiday for three days I have a breakdown. That’s when everything around me is still, and I have time to question everything I’ve done. I’m like, ‘Are my friends real friends? Am I making art that’s right for me? Why am I still signed to a major label? Do I still care about charts? Should I still care about charts?’ I mean, I could be wrong, but I feel like I am one of the few artists who has a foothold on both mainstream Top 40 world and the more left-of-center underground world.”
Read the full feature here.
Charli XCX is a Warner Music artist. .
