Charli xcx has released Music, Fashion, Film, a new album that turns away from the burnished club-pop rush of BRAT and into something rougher, stranger and more openly worked through. On this record, she and co-producers A.G. Cook and Finn Keane make rock music with guitars, and she has described the project as being about process.
That makes Music, Fashion, Film the kind of release fans search for because it answers a simple question: what does Charli xcx sound like after a runaway success? The answer is not a repeat. It is a change of mood, with the songs replacing career insecurity and self-doubt with creativity and gratitude for success. The shift matters now because BRAT had already defined one era of her career; this is the next one arriving while that earlier album still hangs over everything she does.
The record also keeps its feet in motion. It follows Charli xcx’s soundtrack for Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights, but it does not feel like a side road or a pause. The songs move with the loose, first-draft energy of a pop mixtape maker who knows exactly how much she can leave exposed. One track, “Magic Metal Montana,” is dedicated to A.G. Cook as collaborator and friend, which gives the album’s self-made feel a real center of gravity.
That looseness is part of the point. Music, Fashion, Film can sound as if it were under-prepared after an unprecedented smash, but the flaws are arranged with purpose. “Yeah” lasts about two minutes and builds the whole song from the drop in “Song 2,” while “2007” comes off as a jumble of small instrumental and vocal hooks. In “I’m Afraid,” the band turns on seasick Pixies-style guitars, and Charli xcx even compares the track to Yung Lean in press materials. The album’s rock idea gives her work with Cook and Finn Keane a fresh frame, not a retreat.
There is still a harder edge running through it. On “Wink Wink,” she spits, “Maybe I fucked your dad/Just kidding I’m only saying that for effect,” and on “I’m Afraid” she warns, “Don’t fucking choke on your ego when you see me coming.” Those lines keep the album from drifting into gratitude as mood music. They show an artist who is still pushing, still teasing, and still interested in how much of a pop record can survive once the gloss is stripped back. Music, Fashion, Film answers the obvious question in the title: this is not BRAT again. It is Charli xcx using success as material, not an ending.
