‘I desperately wanted friends, and flings, and to understand myself’: Clairo on making one of 2024’s best albums

After her second album anguished about new fame, the US artist self-released the soulful Charm, an exercise in learning to let go of control and embrace the unknown

• The 50 best albums of 2024: No 4 – Clairo: Charm
• The full list of the year’s best albums

Claire Cottrill, AKA Clairo, has charted her life in music. The US singer-songwriter spent her teens making tunes on her laptop and gained an online following for her intimate, lo-fi brand of indie-pop. When her song Pretty Girl went viral in late 2017, she was still in her first year of college.

Two years later, her debut album, Immunity, was widely praised for its maturity and poise, with Cottrill writing and producing all the tracks (with input from Vampire Weekend founding member Rostam Batmanglij). The follow-up, Sling (made with Jack Antonoff), was equally self-assured as Cottrill reflected on her mixed experiences of the music industry and sudden fame. In the quietly eviscerating lead single, Blouse, she vented frustration with a record exec: “Why do I tell you how I feel / When you’re too busy looking down my blouse?”