What I learned as a "panelist" on Charli XCX's Zoom call

I wanted to write a members-only reflection on an interesting experience I had last week: I got to ask Charli XCX a question as a “panelist” during her latest Zoom call about her upcoming quarantine album.

A bit of background: On April 6, Charli announced that she will be making a new album entirely from home, titled how i’m feeling now, to be released on May 15 through her label Asylum Records (an imprint of Atlantic Records). Unlike her previous albums, she will also make her creative process more transparent to the wider public, hosting regular Zoom calls for up to 1,000 fans each time to issue updates on her album’s progress.

I joined the second Zoom call in this series, which took place last Thursday, April 8. One amusing technical glitch on my end: The 1,000 fans who tuned in to the call were spamming the chat section of the Zoom app so much that it overheated my measly 12-inch MacBook, so I had to switch to mobile to avoid cutting out of the call unexpectedly. (The call was also livestreamed on YouTube, where the full video is also available on demand.)

Charli’s PR team pitched this opportunity to me as a virtual spin on a “press conference” — whereby I and some other music journalists would each get to ask Charli a question about her upcoming album, after an intro section in which she walked spectators through her plans with album artwork.

Part of it did end up having a press-conference vibe. In addition to myself, journalists Douglas Greenwood (i-D, Super Magazine), Anna Cafolla (Dazed) and Tori West (BRICKS magazine) — all of whom are based in the U.K. — asked Charli questions ranging from more professional (such as mine, which focused on her history and comfort with remote collaboration) to more personal (such as how she has built up self-confidence over time and is coping with the current pandemic). Our interactions with Charli were brief, lasting only around a few minutes, the way a traditional press conference would run.

But for me, the most interesting part of the call was what came before and after our questions as “the media.”

This Zoom call was far from just a press conference. Aside from journalists, there were a handful of surprise celebrity guests who joined as panelists, including Maisie Williams (Game of Thrones), musician Rebecca Black (of “Friday” infamy) and comedian Jaboukie Young-White (Daily Show), all of whom were calling from their own homes. Charli had a friendly chat with each of these celebrities before opening up the floor to journalists. (Now I can say my closest celebrity encounter was being on the same Zoom call as these people…)

Charli also made the generous gesture of inviting a few superfans as panelists, who got to ask her questions towards the end of the call once the press-oriented portion wrapped up.

In other words, the call was a mix of press conference, VIP fan meet-and-greet and celebrity hangout that I had never seen before. Aside from just a few technical issues, I thought it was a really well-executed demonstration of the current zeitgeist around music marketing, and of technology’s equalizing impact on an industry like mainstream music that previously felt untouchable to the wider public.

From the media’s perspective, Charli didn’t surface any particularly exclusive or gossipy information during these calls that would make a good headline in a publication, aside from the surprise appearances from her famous friends. But I don’t think making headlines was necessarily the point. The main takeaways were that Charli and her team brought previously disparate groups in her career and life together in a single event, opened up the interview process normally left to closed doors in media offices and took much of the elitism out of celebrity access in general.

In particular, when I asked Charli about her experience with remote collaboration, she mentioned that how i’m feeling now will likely be “my most collaborative project, because there will be so many people involved and so much feedback coming in from the Internet.” Other artists are taking similar steps to involve their fans more deeply in their creative processes, either as sounding boards or as direct contributors — from Grimes “open-sourcing” the raw audio and video files from her latest music video to encourage fans to make their own derivatives, to countless DJs and producers livestreaming their DAWs and producing beats in real time on Twitch.

In general, I’ve been impressed by how quickly and creatively many artists have acted to pivot their own production processes and develop captivating experiences for their fans — especially at the major-label level, where marketing plans are often ironed out months in advance. (I noticed some members of Charli’s marketing team at Warner Music were also on the call as panelists, although they understandably never spoke up, perhaps because of how Charli has outwardly marketed the album as “DIY” to the public.)

While artists may have less time on their hands once they’re out touring more, I hope the growing interest in using remote-friendly tools to increase and equalize engagement with fans and the media will continue after this pandemic subsides. This is one of these instances where going “back to normal” may actually be bad branding, and may alienate fans and onlookers who are just getting accustomed to this new world.