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?”

Then third album, Charm, co-created with producer Leon Michels and self-released this July, paired Cottrill’s distinctive voice with vintage soul. She’s more relaxed and more commanding than ever before, perceptive about the shifting sands of desire, but also sanguine and often playful – and Charm has resonated, with nearly 20 million people streaming her on Spotify each month, and Guardian critics voting it at No 4 in our albums of the year poll.

Congratulations on Charm being placed fourth in Guardian critics’ list of 2024’s best albums!
Thank you, it means so much. That might have been the highest [ranking for the album], so it was really like: wow!

Did making Charm feel different from your previous two albums?
Definitely. I’d been used to making music with just one person, building up the song as we go, but I made Charm with a group of people. Leon Michaels, who produced this record, has been working with the same people since he was 13 [Nick Movshon, Homer Steinweiss, Marco Benevento, and Dave Guy] so they’d come in and write their own parts. It was super interesting and fun to let people come up with something together, at the same time.

Was that hard for you, to put your trust in others?
I had moments where I felt super out of control, because I tend to like really knowing the songs inside out. But it was also freeing to allow myself to experience them as a listener, instead of feeling I needed to be responsible for every single decision. After making Charm, I don’t know how I ever thought that every good thing that would happen on an album would come from just my brain. It feels good to let go.

You’ve described your first two records as “someone trying to become an adult” in the public eye. Does Charm feel like your first mature album?
I do think that I’m finding my stride. There’s a world in which this is my first grown record, but I can assure you that, in a few years, I’ll be saying the same thing – that now I’m ready.

I really wanted Immunity to mean something, but I also didn’t really know exactly what I was going for. I love that record because of that semi-nervous energy – you can kind of tell that I’m 21, in the best way. Sling feels like a reaction to the response [to Immunity], the tour and Covid.

Charm is kind-of the dust settling, picking up the pieces, feeling a little more grown-up and refined. I look at Charm as a culmination of a lot of experiences, and having to find yourself in the public eye. It takes time to find your sound, or yourself.

Why did you decide to focus on the subject of charm for this album?
If someone is charming me, or I’m charming them, and we don’t know each other, it’s like this beautiful moment where I’m not necessarily a famous person. I’ve had a couple of moments like that, where they maybe didn’t know what I did for a living, and it was kind of magic. It was like drugs for me: it was so cool that this person liked me, for me.

Coming off Sling, I was insecure about who I was as a person – like: what really matters? I feel very confident and happy now, but that word “charm” first started to come up in my vocabulary then.

I’ve since learned that I love to exist in grey areas, and to not be pinned down by anything. My femininity, my personality and my interests are all so fluid – sometimes it’s hard for me to keep track of all the things I love, and all the things I want to do. I used to struggle with the idea of “what kind of girl I was”, and what kind of parameters I needed to exist within to be accepted. I’m much happier now that I understand that it’s never going to be defined.

The single Sexy to Someone is so perceptive about how life can drag when you don’t have a crush. It doesn’t even really matter who it is, as you sing – it’s just “a reason to get out of the house”. Do you see a crush as something to tide you over until a more meaningful connection, or something that’s meaningful in and of itself?
The idea of being single and “working on yourself” is very interesting to me. I’ve tried it, but it doesn’t necessarily take away the need for external validation. I was insecure, and through working on my confidence and learning to love myself, I changed. But, in those moments, I still desperately needed someone to tell me that I looked sexy, or have a stranger ask if I’m an actress. Those are a reminder that you’re human. You don’t need to shut off connection, or fix yourself in order to be loved.

I wrote the song after I’d been alone in the woods for a long time – no wonder! I was doing what I thought was the right thing to do, but what I desperately wanted was friends, and flings, and to understand myself. You can’t help it – it’s fun to connect.

That’s a theme of the album, too. We assume that our desires are obvious, but the album captures the doubt – of either not knowing what you want, or what’s holding you back from going after it.
I think that comes from unsuccessful relationships – like, what do you make of those? I’m happy with myself and I’m still trying, but it’s hard when things don’t work out. How do I maintain positivity or lightness through the gruelling process that is being single and dating, and not lose myself in the process?

That in itself is a grey area to exist in: you don’t really know where you stand. You’ve had deep love, and you know what that feels like, but you’re in this uncharted territory – you’re having these unsuccessful [dates], but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you don’t deserve love. The deeper parts of the album I think are mainly about how to navigate that.

It’s like that meme: “The rewards of being loved versus the mortifying ordeal of being known.”
Totally! I struggle with that a lot. When you’re in a relationship with someone, or even just casually dating, you have this exchange of information and personality and stories and moments – it’s scary to give that up. What I’ve struggled with most was thinking “no one deserves to have my stories, or know me, if they’re just gonna leave!” – and vice versa. But it’s also like, well … if I don’t have these eternal exchanges, like, what am I doing [with my life]? That’s the point!

Lastly, you’ve been outspoken in your support for Palestine this year.
I don’t find it hard to come out and support Palestine. To me, it was pretty obvious that we needed to do that. I have a lot of amazing friends who put together benefit shows, and it’s been really nice to go and physically be with people who feel the same, and express that, and raise money. With Palestine, Sudan and so many other things in the world that are happening, it’s up to people like me to raise up the people who are already talking about it.