Charli xcx, A. G. Cook and Finn Keane debate the perfect track total for an album

What’s the perfect number of tracks for an album? According to Charli xcx, A. G. Cook and Finn Keane, its 11 – or at least that was the case for Charli’s forthcoming record, Music, Fashion, Film.

In a new episode of the Tape Notes podcast, which goes inside the making of the new album with the trio, they reveal how they settled on 11 for a “concise” feel after some heated debates, as a total of 12 felt too tidy, and even a little bit “lame”.

“We had some quite heated talks about this,” says Charli. “There were lots of opinions about why 12 was just absolutely embarrassing, awkward, lame, there was a lot of heat around not having a 12 track album.”

“But also not 10…” says Cook.

“We’ve had a conversation about track numbers on Charli [self-titled third album]. You wanted 20!” Charli says to A. G. “I remember I was taking the tube from one side of London to the other and I didn’t get through the album. I was like, ‘It can’t be 20, people wanna travel and listen to it.’”

“We finished 20 and it became 15,” he clarifies.

Going back to the new album, Keane weighs in: “It feels quite chic! I think we all felt that in some way, there’s also something about the first two Strokes records that are 11 tracks and [are] really concise. I think what we were all trying to do with this is make it feel really concise… All the songs being quite tight made sense with the material. 12 suddenly felt too  neat, [11] seemed to fit the music we were making.”

Charli later goes on to address how some people might not understand the shorter track lengths of the songs on the new album or the decision to land strictly on 11 in total, but she argues that they enjoy combing through every tiny detail when working together, with valid creative decisions in mind.

“Every single decision we make, sonically and production-wise, songwriting-wise, all of these little things we really think about them intricately, and we do that thought process across each album that we make together,” she says.

“There is a reason behind all of the decisions, with this record [there was] an immediacy we felt was really important to capture… I think that it’s so fun to work in that three dimensional capacity.”

Check out the podcast below:

Support the Tape Notes podcast on Patreon. Music,Fashion, Film by Charli xcx is out on 24 July, and you can pre-order it now.

Rachel is a DIY musician who began learning guitar and keyboard from her bedroom at 14. She has written news and features for MusicTech since 2022, and also has bylines across Kerrang!, Guitar.com, and The Forty-Five. Though a lover of heavy music, her guilty pleasure is 2000s pop.