Like I said, this was in 2016, and Charli and I talked at length about an album that I no longer think will be released. Before interviewing her I'd heard 8 songs, co-produced by SOPHIE and Stargate, and Charli assured me the record was finished: “I want to make the best pop album of 2017,” she said at the time. After our story, she released the lead single, "After the Afterparty," which failed to chart in the U.S. and was hardly as successful or interesting as her 2017 single "Boys," which had not been part of the album as I heard it, nor did it featured SOPHIE and Stargate.

Instead of the best pop album of 2017, last year Charli released two probably-better mixtapes executive produced by PC Music's A.G. Cook, who had served as her creative director at the time of our cover story. Similar to her 2016 SOPHIE-produced Vroom Vroom tape, these releases and their rosters of producers and featured artists rightfully positioned Charli as one of the music industry's most adept A&R's. She's not just an incredible songwriter but a key tastemaker, with a keen understanding of the global pop landscape and the unsung artists who are shifting it: Noonie Bao, Carly Rae Jepsen, Cupcakke, Kim Petras, Tove Lo, and Pabllo Vittar.

Like Vroom Vroom, the 2017 tapes were far freer than the album I'd heard, particularly in their lyrical content. “Vroom was not us trying to appease anyone," Charli said in our 2016 interview. "I think my label got afraid, and I think a lot of people were confused. But I just felt that I wanted to — I just wanted to do that. That’s the scene I came from when I was younger, that club scene. That’s originally what I saw in SOPHIE, and I’d never actually made music that was representative of that.”