never heard of them before this HN article lol. the only thing that struck me was no paragraphs in the article, just one giant wall of text. and also how bored id be living that lifestyle (personally)
I was aware of her name, and roughly her genre, but couldn't have named or even recognised a single track of hers.
I looked her up and started listening as I read the article, and the while listening to the two track released so far from her upcoming album I was thinking "this is really good, why haven't I listened to her before?" then I put on her last album Brat, and realised "Oh, right. That's not my style of music. She's never been writing for me, and I know who she is writing for, and I understand why they like her and why she's so popular." And I respect that.
I'll keep an ear out for her new album, and based on what I've heard so far I fully expect to enjoy it, way more than I'm enjoying Brat. I've also added her substack to my rss feeds, no guarantee it'll stay there long term, but I'm at least curious enough to follow along for her next few blogposts.
And there are plenty of people who haven't heard of Aaron Judge or Steph Curry. That doesn't change the fact that they've played at an entirely different level than the overwhelming majority of other athletes playing their sport.
My point wasn't that everyone will recognize them, just that there's a pretty clear difference between the most successful few at the top of their domain and the others who might still be able to make a living doing it but aren't superstar-level compared to their peers, and that's independent of whether every single person knows who they are. The parent comment brought to the idea of average players of the major professional sports leagues, and I felt like that was almost missing the context of this article, which is someone who might be the literally have been the most successful artist of last year, not just an average a professional musician.
I would bet you have encountered a much larger catalog of Charli tracks than you might think. I too was in the same position last year. Then I looked her up and she has actually produced like 30% of the songs played in Urban hat shops, in public places that allow swimming, and in office buildings in the hvac-safe entrance zone between the first and second set of automatic doors.
