To become an online sensation “you have to give the internet something that they never knew they needed,” says Charlie Green. And the musician also known as CG5 knows a thing or two about viral success. More than 10million people subscribe to his YouTube channel and another five million follow him on TikTok where he posts EDM-inspired bangers about indie video games.
There’s ‘Sleep Well’, a euphoric electro-pop anthem that dives into the motivations behind the nightmarish enemies that plague survival horror Poppy’s Playtime, which has been viewed more than 310million times. You’ve also got ‘Show Yourself’, a sleek pop cut that dives into the world of social deduction game Among Us, jaunty ode to Luigi’s Mansion‘s ‘Phantom Dancing’ and the fist-pumping Minecraft rave-rock of ‘Hold The Mine’.
He’s also put his spin on big-screen hits (an a cappella cover of Jack Black’s popular ditty ‘Peaches’, from The Super Mario Bros. Movie, for example) and makes songs about memes including Skibidi Toilet, Big Chungus and Backrooms. It’s the sort of content that gets passed around the school playground at lunchtime but it’s memorable enough to have taken on a life outside of that too.
Despite being an online creator, Green has sold out headline gigs all around the world. Post-show, fans stop him to say just how much his playful, passionate songs mean to them. “The fact this has quite literally gone worldwide is mental,” says Green from his plush home-studio-slash-streaming-den. “A lot of people have told me that my music has saved their life. I think that they’ve saved their own lives and I just was a small part of it. But to hear something like that is very affirming. It definitely means a lot to be in this position of power but it doesn’t feel heavy or anything. Making an impact on people’s lives by singing the songs that they love is incredible.”
Green tells us that he first started making songs when he was just five years old. Instead of letting him play video games, his parents installed music creation software on the family computer and he was instantly obsessed. “As soon as I opened that program, I knew I needed to make music forever,” says Green. “I know it’s weird to imagine a five-year-old knowing what they want to do with their life, but I just loved it.”
As he grew up, Green tried the more conventional routes to turning that passion into a career. He spent three months as the keyboardist in a band and when he was 15, he auditioned for an early season of The Voice. “I was going through puberty at the time, so I didn’t get very far,” he says, palmed off with the “we’ll call you” line from the talent show’s producers. After that, he did what every aspiring musician in the 2010s did – recorded acoustic covers in his bedroom and uploaded them onto YouTube in the hope that he would be discovered.
But it was his own creations, built from scratch in GarageBand on an iPad using the built-in mic, that really made his name. At first he turned the Pokémon soundtrack into aggressive club anthems and crafted chill trap remixes of Undertale classics before writing original songs about his favourite games.
Charlie Green AKA CG5.“People were already making songs about video games,” Green says, referencing a long line of nerdcore artists such as MC Lars, MC Frontalot and The Living Tombstone stretching all the way back to the early noughties. “But I wanted to bring my own production style to it.” Instead of the typical rock and hip-hop inspired odes to gaming, he took influence from dance pop titans Calvin Harris, Marshmello, Porter Robinson and Michael Jackson. Just before he graduated from high school, one of his creations about viral indie horror Bendy And The Ink Machine blew up and earned him some fairly decent money for the very first time. “That’s when I knew I could do this forever.”
That online audience also gave him a newfound sense of belonging, as did collaborating with other creators such as the YouTube collective DAGames, the now-retired Dolvondo and, more recently, virtual streamer Ironmouse. “As someone with autism, it was very hard for me to make friends growing up. I was this awkward musician trying to understand myself,” says Green. “That changed when I found friends that I shared this passion with though.”
He’s switching things up for his second full-length ‘Gamer’ (out on October 16). Instead of progressive dance ragers about his favourite games, he’s made a more personal collection of tunes inspired by their soundtracks.
Shaped by Chicago post-rage rapper 2hollis and the wave of glitching electronic artists that have broken through after the success of Charli XCX’s ‘Brat‘ (Ninajirachi, Underscores, Frost Children), CG5 originally wanted to make a pure hyperpop album. But he didn’t want to abandon his audience completely, so he built each project around his favourite gaming soundtracks instead. “I wanted to give people what they wanted,” he says, “while also [making] songs that aren’t just about video games.”
The retro rave of ‘I Don’t Like You’ takes inspiration from Street Fighter (“Because they’re younger, there’s a chance my audience doesn’t even know about those classic Street Fighter soundtracks, so it’ll be an education for them”), while the euphoric pop of ‘Go Go Go’ is Black Eyed Peas meets side-scrolling rhythm title Geometry Dash. The dreamy ‘Lie & Lie’ evokes the relaxing world of Animal Crossing (“A strange game to bring into my style of music”) and the pulsating dance beats of ‘Am I Allowed To Feel Love Now’ are inspired by The Legend Of Zelda.
As for the lyrics, ‘Gamer’ tells the story of a relationship slowly breaking down. “It’s not about a real situation but it was definitely inspired by a couple of people in my life,” says Green – which makes a change from the fantastical storytelling of his other creations. “I really love writing about video games because I can detach from myself. Making music that’s more personal is difficult for me, just because I’m not very good at talking about myself or putting what I’m feeling into words. I’m grateful to [be able to] bring that realness into the music though.
“A lot of my fans want to detach from reality and find an escape in my video game-inspired music. Maybe this album can be the best of both worlds, where it’s a little more relatable while still being fun and fantastical,” says Green. He has one eye on reaching more people, but he’s not going to ditch his existing fanbase to get there. “I love being part of this community that cares about music, and it’s nice that there are people [in it] who have had similar trials to me. It helps me feel not alone. Hopefully my music can offer the same to them.”
‘Gamer’ is released on October 16
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