Breakin' All the Rules: Charli XCX's Rise to Fame

It's as if the stars aligned in 2014 to transform Charlotte Emma Aitchison, better known as Charli XCX, from an indie pop singer into an international pop star. The 22-year-old British singer songwriter made it huge last year but newer fans probably don't know Charli has been on the music scene for years before getting her big break when she had her name attached to two of the most titanic summer songs of 2014.

Years before Charli was cooing the chorus to Iggy Azaleas' "Fancy," or before her song "Boom Clap" from the "Fault in Our Stars" soundtrack took over the world, she was toiling away on her own music. At one point she was even drafted to write songs for the biggest pop stars in the world.

But before she was working with huge producers, she first gained major traction in 2011, three years after she put out her invisible album "14." Charli teamed up with Grammy Award-winning producer Ariel Rechtshaid, a pop mastermind who has made hits for everyone from Usher to Haim to Vampire Weekend to Kylie Minogue. The duo put out two stellar tracks, "Stay Away" and "Nuclear Seasons."

While the songs sounded fresh (think the Cure meets Gwen Stefani), the release of the new music was the perfect timing. In 2011 / 2012, a new group of indie pop musicians emerged. Long before Robin Thicke released his Billboard-topping jam, it's artists like Charli, Rechtshaid, Sky Ferreira, Grimes, Dev Hynes and Beyonce's sister Solange, who rose up and blurred the lines between indie and mainstream music.

Charli and Rechtshaid were at the forefront of this "small pop" collective, as Pitchfork writer Carrie Battan wrote in an excellent 2012 article.

"I'm not sure where that indie line is anymore," Rechtshaid told Pitchfork. "Anytime a sound becomes co-opted by the mainstream, you need to keep it moving. I turn on the radio and it sounds like MGMT or Arcade Fire, but it isn't. So it's like, 'OK, that's pretty much been done now. What's next?'"

Rechtshaid shaped Charli's sound on her breakthrough record "True Romance," producing and co-writing seven out of 13 songs, along with his pal Justin Raisen, who also worked with Ferreira and Minogue as well as rapper Theophilus London.

"When I met Charli, she was going to different producers, doing that thing you do: walk in, meet someone, spend a day, and co-write a song,"

Rechtshaid also said in the same Pitchfork article. "Where I come from, that approach is really strange-- I started out in a punk band, where you have to have a vision for what you're doing and you just do it. It's not so much like collaborating with strangers."

While Rechtshaid doesn't have an instantly identifiable sound (like the Ghost Town DJ and handclap throwback style of DJ Mustard or the gooey trappings of Mike Will Made It) it seems like everything he touches turns to gold a la Max Martin or Dr. Luke. Unlike Martin and Luke, he's willing to take chances, bringing out the best of indie pop stars and tapering down the sounds pop giants like Usher. On "True Romance," released in 2013, Rechtshaid is responsible for the record's highest highs, like the synthy and super catchy "Take My Hand" and the dark and swirling "Black Roses."

But Rechtshaid doesn't get all the credit - the reasons why these songs are so successful is because of Charli. Her vocals and, specifically her punctuation, on "True Romance" sets her apart from contemporaries like Ferreira and even Grimes. While each woman has a distinct sound, Charli's tunes are the most accessible and a whole lot of fun, so it's no surprise that she is the first to make a full transition from indie pop to the radio (though Grimes and Ferreira are right behind her). More so, Charli has a great way of words and lyrics that are so overtly corny that they become sentimental; like boiling sugar into that delicious saccharine caramel goo.

Though "True Romance" didn't penetrate the Billboard Top 200, Charli found some major success after co-writing one of the best, and easily most fun, tracks of 2012: Icona Pop's "I Love It." Caroline Hjelt, one half of the Swedish duo, said Charli's demo of the chart topper was "cute" and "cocky" and after it appeared on an episode of HBO's "Girls," it eventually peaked at no. 7 on Billboard's Hot 100. "I Love It" solidified Charli as a force to be reckoned with: not only was she crafting brilliant and weird pop songs for herself, she also showed that she knew what it took to make a huge nation-grabbing jam for other aritsts.

It was only a month after the release of "True Romance" when Charli revealed to fans that she had already begun working on its follow up and by the end of 2013, she released what, at the time, was announced as its lead single: the disco-inspired shimmery "SuperLove," arguably one of Charli's best songs to date. Now with some more success under her belt, she started to work with a number of different producers for her new material, including "SuperLove," which was co-written and produced by Patrik Berger, a Grammy nominated musician from Sweden, best known for working on songs like Robyn's epic "Dancing On My Own," and, unsurprisingly, "I Love It." Though it didn't gain Charli any char success (it did reach no. 62 in the U.K.) it only got fans more excited, proving Charli was going to take some big risks.

It was announced in 2014 that "SuperLove" was scrapped from the album and the record itself was being pushed back, allowing Charli to work even more artists. It's this time where Charli's career went full throttle though. After the record was delayed, she spent time writing songs for others. In an interview with Pop Justice, she said she had about 500 songs she's "never going to sing but someone else could sing a lot better than I could, so I'd rather give them to other people than have them sitting in my brain, festering away." She later added 35 of those 500 could be "hits" and while some of those tracks went to Britney Spears, none of them were used on her lackluster Britney Jean album.

One of those 500 tracks was "Boom Clap," one of the two songs to propel Charli from fodder for buzz blogs to a household name. It was initially a song given to Hillary Duff, but after she turned it down (though it appears her "team" turned it down and Duff claimed she had no idea about "Boom Clap" and would have taken it had she heard it), Charli recorded it and it became part of the "Fault in Our Stars" soundtrack.

As "Boom Clap" gained traction, Charli was being boosted by another song, arguably one of the biggest songs of the summer, Iggy Azalea's "Fancy," where Charli sang that unforgettable Stefani-swagger hook. Both "Fancy" and "Boom Clap" did extremely well on the charts, peaking at no. 1 and no. 8 respectively, and before we all knew it, she was dominating the world, performing on "Saturday Night Live" and snatching awards.

When her latest record "Sucker" dropped in December, Charli found herself working with an array of producers and songwriters. This time around, Rechtshaid only co-produced / wrote one track, her latest single "Doin' It," which features U.K. singer Rita Ora. Sucker is comprised of more Top 40 go-getters, including Norwegian duo StarGate (Rihanna, Beyonce, Katy Perry, Iggy Azalea, Selena Gomez) Cashmere Cat (Ariana Grande, Tinashe, Usher, Juicy J), John Hill (Rihanna, Jay Z, Christina Aguilera, Shakira, Eminem, M.I.A., Pink, Bleachers) and more. But for all its all-star producers, "Sucker" is a surprisingly gritty and crunchy pop-punk album.

Instead of churning out 13 songs that mimic the airy and undeniably catchy "Boom Clap," Charli took a sharp left and her sophomore effort is full of shouting, hard drums, loud guitars and the swag of the Sex Pistols or the Buzzcocks, specifically on standout "London Queen" and "Famous." It's a risky move but Charli has never played by the rules and "Sucker" is a testament to that.