Charli XCX

My dad always used to encourage me to dress weird.

I always see my songs in colors, and I'm often more inspired by movies and photographs than I am by other songs when I write my music. I'm also inspired by fashion, and I want my music to be a visual painting of what's in my mind.

When I was younger, I was a rave kid trapped inside a singer/songwriter's body. But I kind of figured my way out because I started making these really terrible beats on this Yamaha keyboard that my parents got me for my 10th birthday.

I love that '...Baby One More Time' video, to be honest; it's amazing.

I'm inspired by artists like Robyn, just because she writes amazing pop songs, and they're not throwaway. When I listen to a Robyn pop song, I don't feel like she's just kind of saying something and not thinking; I feel like it's really emotional.

I do appreciate the '80s as an era, the general sounds and aesthetics of the era. The Cure, that whole kind of image is really kind of amazing, I think. The power ballads and how everything sparkles and words are really dramatic. Huge drums, things like that. I do really find it inspiring.

The scenes in 'The Virgin Suicides' where Elle Fanning is ice skating are really amazing.

If there's intelligence behind an opinion, then I'm all for expressing it, but I would never just start a fight with someone for the sake of it - that's just not me.

I made video art for quite a long time, and I made this video covering myself in burgers and dancing to Major Lazer and doing covers of Britney Spears songs... I can't remember how I got there, but my teacher said he'd have to fail me because it had mild nudity.

Sometimes I feel like I was born in the wrong year - I think it would have been cool to be alive in the '60s.

I've always wanted to write pop music. I never wanted to be cool or make a hipster record.

There's something about girls together, uniting, that I just thought was cool.

I've passed up on many a thing that could have made me a big artist or something. Like, I was offered a feature on a Christina Aguilera song and I turned it down. It just wasn't right. She's cool, but it just wasn't right.

I think big brows are pretty cool.

I think the best people are the ones who are just as nice and fun. This is really cheesy, but you only have one life - why spend most of it pretending to be cool?

I used to worry about being cool. Now I realize that I genuinely don't care.

I think it's cool to be a rock star I don't think there are many. There aren't many who speak out and take risks. And I think that's important.

I never set out to be a cult cool artist. I always made music that I thought was pop.