Can Charli XCX turn it back around?

It'll be interesting to see what happens to Charli XCX's career in the UK after Break The Rules flumped into the chart at 35 and disappeared without a trace.

To be honest, it wasn't her best effort - replacing Boom Clap's carefree abandon with a petulant lyric and sneery video - but the goodwill from Fancy and Boom Clap should have carried her a little higher up the charts.

It's not even a "young people don't buy music" problem: The video for Break The Rules has a disappointing, if not abysmal, 8 million views. Boom Clap has 84 million, while Fancy racked up an unbelievable 349 million (!).

I hope the poor performance is an aberration, because Charli is one of the thrillingest, killingest pop stars we have, as anyone who's seen her live show can attest.

Charli herself doesn't seem too flustered, telling Seventeen Magazine: "I'm going to build an empire. I'm always writing for someone else. I want to be someone who has her fingerprints all over the pop charts."

And, while she's contributing to the Hunger Games soundtrack and collaborating with Giorgio Moroder, that seems entirely possible.

But the proof will come when her album, Sucker, "drops" on the unforgivingly competitive date of 16th December (26th January in the UK).

To tempt you into purchasing a copy, she's just uploaded the new song Gold Coins to Soundcloud. Written with Robyn and Icona Pop collaborator Patrick Berger, it's pop with balls. Massive shiny balls.

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