A.G. Cook on Creating His Own Form of ‘Britpop’ With Third Album, Producing Charli XCX’s ‘Brat’ and the Future of Pop Music: ‘Anything Could Happen’
variety.comEllise Shafer For about a year during the COVID-19 pandemic, A.G. Cook found himself stuck in a rural Montana town. The 33-year-old London-born producer and tastemaker — known for his longstanding collaboration with avant-garde pop star Charli XCX as well as credits on songs from Beyoncé, Troye Sivan and Caroline Polachek — had never felt so British.
Cook found the experience “quite shocking,” he tells Variety at a Hackney pub over English breakfast tea (it’s midday, so we opted out of a pint).
Speaking of his hometown, Cook says, “There’s a lot of funny inventiveness, but it’s all closed on this small island and it has this conservatism.
Even when you’re being experimental or crazy, there’s always this like, ‘Oh, but here’s where it ends.’ But being in Montana is kind of addictively vast, and obviously epic in that way.” Cook quarantined there with his girlfriend, singer-songwriter Alaska Reid, and her family — she’s the oldest of five siblings and Cook is an only child, which he says felt like “suddenly being in a sitcom.” Within that year, Cook went on lots of hikes, learned to ride a horse and felt his perspective shift, leading to the concept for his third album “Britpop,” out on Friday.
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