Variety is excited to announce that singer-songwriter Charli XCX will be honored with the Hitmaker of the Year award at its eighth annual Hitmakers celebration.
The Dec. 7 event and accompanying magazine look back at the year in music and recognize the writers, producers, publishers, managers and executives who helped make — and break — the 25 most-consumed songs of the year, as measured by Billboard and Luminate Charts. Hitmakers culminates with an invitation-only brunch held on Saturday, December 7. Wells Fargo will be a premier partner of the event. More honorees and details will be announced in the coming weeks.
“We’ve been following Charli XCX since her first album, ‘True Romance,’ back in 2013 and have been with her every step of the way. We’re so happy to see that the world has finally caught up with her innovations in pop music, which have reached a new peak with ‘BRAT,’” said Variety Executive Music Editor Jem Aswad. “We’re overjoyed to honor her as our Hitmaker of the Year.”
Previous Variety Hitmakers of the Year include SZA, Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar, Harry Styles, Jack Harlow, and Elton John and Dua Lipa.
Charli XCX is indisputably one of the greatest pop innovators of the 21st century. She began making music as a teenager, posting songs onto MySpace and performing at raves, and signed with Warner subsidiary Asylum Records in 2010, at the age of 17. She scored her first hit just two years later with her composition “I Love It,” which was a global smash for Icona Pop, and followed with her debut album, “True Romance,” in 2013. She had two more major hits over the following months — her own “Boom Clap” and the Iggy Azalea collaboration “Fancy” — but began making more innovative, challenging music, initially with the late pop savant Sophie and then with A. G. Cook, who remains one of her closest collaborators. Her two 2017 mixtapes, “No. 1 Angel” and “Pop 2,” are acknowledged as pioneering works in the genre now known as hyperpop, and reached fruition with her 2019 hit album “Charli.” Also in that year, she scored another global hit with her work on Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello’s smash “Senorita.” A serial collaborator, over the years she has worked with Billie Eilish, Lizzo, Lorde, Robyn, Caroline Polachek, Haim, Raye, Clairo, Tove Lo and many others.
With the pandemic came another shift in direction, and Charli first challenged herself and Cook by successfully completing an album in five weeks — 2020’s “How I’m Feeling Now” — before stripping back her sound with “Crash” two years later. She landed another major hit with her 2023 song “Speed Drive” from the blockbuster “Barbie” soundtrack, but with “BRAT,” it seems the world has finally caught up with her. The album’s sound is as challenging and dancefloor-ready as any of her previous records, but its driving rhythms and indelible hooks have landed in a music world that understands it, largely thanks to her work over the past decade. Charli’s fame and influence have also grown exponentially thanks to the album’s simple yet iconic cover, which has reached far beyond the music world and became a catch-phrase of the summer of 2024, even being referenced by presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ campaign. Currently, her “Sweat” tour with co-headliner Troye Sivan is selling out arenas across North America through October 23 — and earlier this week lit up New York’s iconic Madison Square Garden with cameos from special guests Lorde and Addison Rae.
From Variety US