CXLOE - Shiny New Thing (2024)

* CONTAINS TRACKS IN VARIOUS SAMPLE RATES
Tracks 9,10 are 24/44.1
Tracks 1 are 24/48
Tracks 2,3,4,7,11 are 24/96
Tracks 5,6,8,12,13 are 16/44.1

The Australian pop star delivers on the promise of her lithe singles. CXLOE is the biggest pop artist you have never heard of. She has toured arenas across Australia alongside Maroon 5 and opened for Sugababes as part of WorldPride. Her music boasts over 200 million streams on digital platforms, with “Show You” being named an essential song in the history of Australian pop music. Rolling Stone recently crowned her an “alt-pop star” who is one of the country’s “most-watched music exports”. However, none of these achievements lessen CXLOE’s anxiety regarding her place in a competitive independent music market.

On her debut album, Shiny New Thing, the Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter toys with the question of an expiry date for her ambitions. “Am I going to make it?” she asks on the pulsating title track, affecting the same cool detachment as fellow Antipodean Troye Sivan, “I’ve got nothing left to lose”. Her desperation plays out on the dancefloor, describing a Faustian bargain for commercial success in a nu-disco rush: “I’ll be your shiny new thing, I’ll do things I don’t mean,” she purrs with ironic abandon, caught somewhere between giving up and giving in.