featuring @charli_xcx
Charli XCX’s highly anticipated eighth studio album, Music, Fashion, Film has dropped. Few albums this year will be scrutinized and compared to their predecessor as intensely as Music, Fashion, Film, and that’s understandable. Brat, her previous release, was a cultural phenomenon—spanning runways and political campaigns with its sharp, lime-green aesthetic. It was Charli’s masterpiece, a rare fusion of artistic vision and commercial success after a decade as an underground, cult pop figure.
However, Brat came with its costs. Charli revealed that the frenetic energy of her live shows left her with nerve damage and a traumatic relationship with performance. The mental toll was documented in her 2026 film The Moment, a self-aware mockumentary capturing the toll of the Brat era, where artistic integrity was sacrificed for cringe-worthy brand deals and relentless promotion. Brat is gone—long live Brat. The ending of Music, Fashion, Film makes a clear statement about moving forward, just as its beginning sets the tone. As she did early in her career with Club Classics, the album’s opening track “Rock Music” serves as a prologue—Charli’s sarcastic declaration that the “dance floor is dead” and that she’s now “making rock music,” layered with static distortion. This prompted countless predictable thinkpieces; of course, the dance floor isn’t dead—Brat is.
When “Rock Music” was released as the album’s lead single, many misunderstood Charli’s dry, deadpan lyrics (“Wow, I’m really banging my head”) as a literal pivot to rock. It’s not. While she and her core collaborators—AG Cook and Finn Keane—have shifted from manic synths to gritty guitars and thick basslines (notably on tracks like “Card Declined”), the essence remains firmly within Charli XCX’s pop universe. The album is also concise: just over 30 minutes, with most songs around two minutes long, except for the closing track “No One Lasts Forever,” a nearly six-minute farewell featuring director David Cronenberg.
There’s no wasted time here, and Charli doesn’t linger. She swiftly moves from the abrasiveness of “Card Declined” to “SS26,” where she walks a runway contemplating promotional strategies (“Think my politics could work as a press strategy/ And my heritage could give me quite the USP”), all amid an apocalyptic backdrop. Tracks like “Camera” explore the anxiety of stepping into new roles—acting, performance, reinvention—while “2007” captures the jittery rush of performing through a phone camera. The lyrics, much like her standout song “I Think About It All the Time,” are stream-of-consciousness—unfinished thoughts, voice notes from late-night conversations. Songs like “Wink Wink” and “Persona” delve into ego-death and reinvention, while “Magic Metal Montana” is a heartfelt ode to her close friend AG Cook and the joy of creating music together.
At its core, Music, Fashion, Film is about art—the vital importance of it, the purity, and the sacrifices involved. “Rock Music,” though ironic, carries a profound truth: “The nerve damage is real/ But it’s the only way to feel something/ Hurt yourself/ Yeah, maybe jump off the stage/ I hope they catch you today/ But if they don’t, it’s okay.” When everything around you is collapsing and nothing lasts forever, immersing yourself in your passions becomes the only way forward.
- Email: neill@outloudculture.com
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