Released in May 2020, how i’m feeling now marks a striking moment in Charli XCX’s career. Coming off the experimental gloss of her self-titled 2019 album Charli, this project pushes deeper into the realm of hyperpop while embracing a raw, homegrown aesthetic. Created entirely during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the album is both a reflection of its time and a bold exercise in real-time creativity.

Charli announced her plans to make the album in just six weeks, inviting fans into the process through social media. This decision was more than a logistical workaround. It was an artistic statement. She aimed to capture her immediate emotional landscape with little polish and a lot of honesty. What emerged was a hyper-personal, internet-slick, yet emotionally unfiltered record that channels isolation, longing, and digital-age love into pop form.

Sonic Exploration

The sonic identity of how i’m feeling now is bold and immediate. From the first moments, the album leans into a hyper-digital sound that feels both chaotic and calculated. The production isn’t traditionally polished, but it’s far from messy. Instead, it thrives in a space that feels intentionally volatile. Beats glitch, vocals distort, and synths erupt like emotional outbursts. This lo-fi sharpness isn’t a limitation but a choice that mirrors the raw emotional terrain the album covers.

With A. G. Cook and BJ Burton steering much of the production, the album plays with contrast. Tracks like “pink diamond” bristle with aggressive, industrial textures, while “7 years” layers shimmering synths under soft, almost fragile vocal delivery. Charli’s voice is often treated with effects, but rather than creating distance, it enhances the emotional tone. The auto-tune and pitch shifts don’t mask feeling—they heighten it, making her sound both superhuman and painfully exposed.

Genre Elements

Musically, the album blends elements of hyperpop, glitchcore, and experimental electronica, grounded by pop song structures that keep it from veering into abstraction. Tracks like “claws” and “forever” wrap sincere lyrics in high-energy arrangements, managing to feel both intimate and explosive. The use of space in the mix, the placement of percussive elements, and the chopped vocal layers all contribute to a sense of controlled chaos that suits the themes of digital isolation and emotional overload.

Rather than sitting neatly within one genre, how i’m feeling now pushes pop to its digital edge. It doesn’t just blend genres—it fractures and reassembles them, creating a sound that feels distinctly now. The production choices aren’t just aesthetic. They reinforce the album’s message: connection in the digital age is messy, glitchy, and sometimes beautiful.

Lyrical Analysis

The lyrics of how i’m feeling now center on intimacy, distance, and the fragile balance between vulnerability and self-preservation. Written during a period of global uncertainty, Charli’s words often feel like internal monologues made public. Love, longing, and emotional self-awareness thread through the album, with many songs reflecting the tension of being physically apart from her partner while emotionally tethered.

Recurring themes include the complexities of modern relationships, digital communication, and personal growth under pressure. On “forever,” Charli captures the contradiction of temporary separation and lasting commitment with lines like “I will always love you / Even when we’re not together.” It’s direct, yet layered—she’s speaking to love in flux, caught in the moment between certainty and fear.

Lyrical Depth

Lyrically, the album leans more toward emotional clarity than poetic abstraction. There’s a diary-like quality to much of the writing. Songs like “enemy” and “detonate” unfold with blunt honesty, exploring insecurity and emotional push-pull in a way that’s easy to grasp yet still resonant. The lyrics may not rely heavily on metaphor, but their plainness adds to their power. They feel honest because they aren’t dressed up.

What gives the lyrics weight is their emotional timing. They hit hardest when paired with the unpredictable production and vocal delivery. “anthems” captures the pandemic-induced restlessness in a single line: “I’m so bored / Wake up late, eat some cereal / Try my best to be physical.” It’s almost mundane, but in context, it lands like a quiet scream.

Cohesion and Flow

How i’m feeling now unfolds like a continuous emotional arc, shaped by urgency and intimacy. The tracklist isn’t built on traditional narrative structure, but the album flows with a clear emotional rhythm. From the explosive opener “pink diamond” to the reflective closer “visions,” the progression feels deliberate, if not linear. Each track contributes a distinct emotional beat—anger, longing, joy, anxiety—that together sketch a portrait of a mind in motion.

Rather than following a plot, the album traces a mood. Early tracks hit with energy and defiance, while the midsection dips into more vulnerable territory. Songs like “detonate” and “enemy” slow the pace, giving space to reflection before the tempo builds again with “anthems” and “visions.” That rise and fall gives the album a heartbeat. Even without a traditional story, there’s a sense of arrival by the end.

Thematic Consistency

Sonically and thematically, the album holds its focus. Charli’s palette—both lyrical and musical—is consistent throughout. The themes of love, self-doubt, and digital-age disconnection never stray far, and the production choices support that cohesion. Despite the variety in tempo and tone, nothing feels out of place. Each track feels like it belongs to the same creative moment.

What ties everything together is not just sound, but intent. The real-time creation of the album gives it a natural unity, like a journal written over a single season. It’s not seamless, and a few moments feel slightly less refined, but that rawness is part of the charm. It feels honest, lived-in, and complete in its own fragmented way.

Standout Tracks and Moments

Several tracks on how i’m feeling now rise above the rest, not just for their sonic appeal but for how well they embody the album’s emotional core.

Forever

“Forever” is an early highlight. It’s emotionally steady and sonically dynamic, with layered synths that pulse gently under a vocal that feels distant yet sincere. The chorus lingers, both musically and emotionally, capturing the strange feeling of being separated from someone you love but still anchored to them.

Claws

“Claws” stands out for its playful energy and glitchy sweetness. Its repetitive lyrics—“I like, I like, I like, I like everything about you”—might seem simple, but they’re delivered with such urgency and joy that they become infectious. The track doesn’t just tell you about love, it immerses you in the giddy disorientation of it.

Anthems

“Anthems” is another peak moment. It’s the sound of cabin fever turned into pop catharsis. With its pounding beat and restless lyrics, it captures the desire to escape and the frustration of stasis. The line “I want anthems / Late nights, my friends, New York” is pure yearning, and it hits with extra force in the context of lockdown life.

Detonate

Instrumentally, “Detonate” offers one of the most striking shifts. It’s more subdued, but its minimalist beat and echoing vocal create a sense of emotional fallout. The song’s restraint makes it one of the more quietly powerful moments on the record.

Visions

One of the album’s most memorable transitions comes at the end, as “Visions” gradually disintegrates into a repeating loop that stretches past the five-minute mark. It’s hypnotic and almost trance-like, as if the album refuses to let go, looping thoughts until they dissolve. That moment doesn’t just end the album—it suspends it in a kind of emotional limbo, which feels both unsettling and appropriate.

Artistic Contribution and Innovation

How i’m feeling now doesn’t just fit within the hyperpop genre—it helps define its emotional range. While Charli XCX has long been associated with experimental pop, this album feels like a clear statement of what that experimentation can achieve when matched with real-time vulnerability. It’s not only a product of its moment but a blueprint for how pop music can be both deeply personal and digitally chaotic without losing accessibility.

Within the broader music industry, the album stands out for how it was made as much as for how it sounds. The decision to produce, write, and release the project within six weeks, while actively involving fans in the process, was a bold move. It challenged traditional models of pop production and distribution, emphasizing transparency, speed, and community over perfection. That kind of openness is rare, and it gave the album an immediacy that many polished records lack.

Sonically, the album pushes the hyperpop sound into new emotional territory. Where the genre is often celebrated for its maximalism and surrealism, how i’m feeling now pairs those aesthetics with grounded, human emotion. The juxtaposition of warped production with straightforward, heartfelt lyrics offers a fresh take on what pop can express. It’s not about rejecting mainstream pop tropes but bending them into new shapes that reflect a fragmented, digital world.

Closing Thoughts

How i’m feeling now is a striking blend of chaos and clarity. Its strength lies in its emotional immediacy and its willingness to embrace imperfection as part of the process. Charli XCX doesn’t just deliver another experimental pop album—she opens a window into what it means to create under pressure, in isolation, and with full transparency. The result is a work that feels urgent, personal, and unfiltered in a way few mainstream albums ever do.

The production is adventurous, the lyrics are raw, and the album’s structure holds together through a shared emotional language, even when the sonic textures are intentionally jarring. That said, some tracks may feel underdeveloped or too reliant on their aesthetic choices to carry emotional weight. A few moments blur together rather than stand apart. But even those instances reflect the project’s core ethos: emotion over perfection, process over polish.

As a whole, the album strengthens Charli’s reputation as a forward-thinking artist. It’s a document of a specific time but also a signal of where pop music might go when the boundaries between artist, audience, and process start to dissolve. For listeners, it offers connection in a disconnected world—and that might be its most lasting impact.

Official Rating: 8/10

This is not a flawless album, but it is a fearless one. Its imperfections are part of its charm, and its ambition is undeniable. Charli XCX set out to make something honest, immediate, and resonant—and she succeeded.