Modern club music trailblazer Charli XCX recently attended the 2025 Ivor Novello Awards ceremony and won the Award for Songwriter of The Year. The ceremony was held on May 22 at the Grosvenor House in London. Charli accepted the award after the crazy success of her recent album of the summer, Brat, which won three Grammy awards and had a sold-out arena tour. Upon accepting the award, Charli offered her ‘unpopular’ opinion about songwriting and gave advice to her fellow songwriters. 

According to NME, Charli started her speech by saying, “Please don’t kill me for saying this, but I have never particularly believed that the idea of ‘everything starts from a great song’ is the real idea.” She continued, “In my head, a great song alone has never actually been enough to captivate an audience, but instead, a song with a distinct identity coupled with a point of view, a potent culture surrounding it, and above all, conviction is what can catapult a songwriter from being technically good to globally renowned.” 

Charli continued her speech by adding her classic touch of humor, saying, “As I’m sure you all agree, I am hardly Bob Dylan, but one thing I certainly do is commit to the bit.” She joked about her ‘lyrical genius’ by mentioning some of her lyrics such as “I want to dance to me, me, me, me, me, when I go to the club, club,” from “Club Classics” and “I’m everywhere I’m so Julia,” from “360”. She elaborated, stating, “Some people might describe [the lyrics] as vapid and nonsensical,” but she “would unpretentiously describe it as Warholian and reflective of the cultural brain rot of our time.”

Charli later advised her fellow songwriters by emphasizing the importance of conviction, saying, “It’s embracing the idea of daring to suck, in my opinion, from writing songs with no fear and no agenda other than making something totally reflective of who you are, come the best songs. Songs that can soundtrack a night out, a summer, or possibly even define a moment in time.” At the end of her speech, she directly addressed all the songwriters in the room and proclaimed, “Make what you want to hear, not what an A&R person has requested of you. Make something for the niche and not something broad. Don’t try and be clever. Be dumb. Have fun and play your songs to your friends and, above all, don’t be afraid of yourself or of your own internal language, because it’s the thing that makes you distinctly you.”

Charli has certainly stuck to her own advice and continued to be her authentic self. While she has stated that she expects her next album to “be a flop,” she is unafraid of this outcome and simply excited to release new music. In other news, Charli recently released a music video for “Party 4 U” to celebrate the 5th anniversary of her 2020 album How I’m Feeling Now, which can be viewed here. 

Photo Credit: Boston Lynn Schulz