I confess that from the get-go, Charli XCX’s ‘Music, Fashion, Film’ rubbed me up the wrong way.
Not because I was desperate for ‘Brat 2.0’ or that anything but another era-defining follow-up would be dismissed as an disappointment. If anything, the thought of a new direction following one of the most critically acclaimed albums of the past five years was not only enticing but artistically necessary, as trying to recapture the zeitgeist in the same way would have seemed both foolish and desperate.
I just wasn’t sold.
First, there was lead single ‘Rock Music’, featuring distorted guitars and some frankly terrible lyrics like “Me and my friends, we go out / We take pictures and make stuff together / And sometimes we cry / We kiss each other, real incestuous vibes” and “I think the dancefloor is dead / So now we’re making roooooock music”.
The self-awareness and sarcastic / meta humour weren’t landing, and the phrase “real incestuous vibes” came off as a performative provocation that just felt desperately thirsty for attention.
The accompanying video for the single didn’t help. It looked like staged edginess, with Charli’s cigfluencer antics feeling like grating posturing featuring the social media crutch-prop du jour. Even as someone who fully endorses the Chandler Bing school of thought which states that “The bottom line is smoking is cool and you know it”, the whole ‘smoking = rebellion’ isn’t unruly or hedonistic. It’s try-hard and uninspired in the extreme.
Then there was the album cover which, in keeping with the title, features founding Velvet Underground member John Cale, fashion designer Marc Jacobs and legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese – with each figure representing the three ‘aspects’ of the album.
Impressive to have gotten all three icons in the same room for the Aidan Zamiri photo shoot, but the whole thing felt too on the nose.
Regardless, I wanted my first impressions to be wrong when listening to Charli’s seventh album in full, having been a fan since 2014’s ‘Sucker’, a champion of 2019’s ‘Charli’, and pleased as punch that the British pop star had achieved hard-won universal acclaim in 2024.
The new and very lean 30-minute LP starts off with ‘Rock Music’ – an inauspicious beginning which is rapidly redeemed by ‘SS26’, the sound of a polished apocalypse that is arguably the strongest song on the album.
From then on, it’s a frustrating downhill slide during which Charli addresses her relationship with identity, self-worth, and the pressures of post-‘Brat’ fame. All promising avenues to explore, but the ideas are muddled – as if the existential crisis needed a bit more time to mature before being expressed.
This is mirrored in the tracks themselves, with most of them clocking in at a scant two-minutes. Plenty are inessential (the vapid ‘2007’ and the minimalist nothing of a song ‘Yeah’ both stand out for all the wrong reasons), but the ones that actually register (the grunge-aping ‘Card Declined’ and the promising ‘Camera’) are over before they’ve had a chance to develop. Or matter.
On ‘Camera’, the solid hook is merged with a decent stab at self-reflection: “I don’t feel embarrassed even if I suck / I’m always craving an experience that feels dangerous / And maybe this is it, maybe it’s what I need / ‘Cause it’s the only way to feel like I’m not actually me.” Frustratingly, the song ends there, leading to the impression that ‘Music, Fashion, Film’ is a hastily released sketchbook of half-baked ideas and songs.
The initial promise of Charli’s state-of-mind vignettes leading to hollowness is epitomised in the song ‘Wink Wink’.
Far less demo-feeling than some of the other tracks, it contains flashes of earworm brilliance which are undone by a semi-stream of consciousness culminating in grating punchlines.
“I used to lick cream off strawberries in the summer…” Good for you. Real upper-class British summer vibes, but do keep going – it’s a delicious pastime.
“And maybe I fucked your dad…” Oh, how risqué of you. What will the landed gentry think now?
“Just kidding, I’m only saying that for effect…” Ah, a pivot to self-awareness suggesting a ‘cool girl’ archetype takedown, showing that you’re so very in on your own joke.
“But my point is I think people can change.” True, but that’s not as profound as you think it sounds.
The self-referential flip-flopping culminates with, “I’m not a bad girl anymore / Wink, wink“, at which point you’re reminded of that insufferable person who says something needlessly insulting or unpleasant during conversation and defends themselves with a smirk and the pithy refuge: “Can’t you take a joke? It’s just banter!”
Incidentally, anyone guilty of that retort or fond of using the term ‘banter’ needs to come to terms with the fact that the passive-aggressive and accountability-dodging term only masks the trivialisation of bullying. Stop it. Get some help.
In Charli’s defence, ‘Music, Fashion, Film’ has its fleeting moments, and following up ‘Brat’ was never going to be an easy task.
Pivot too hard, and you alienate the fanbase; do more of the same, and you’re coasting. But when the follow-up to your global juggernaut barely registers – despite ‘SS26’, the genuine gut-punch of ‘I’m Afraid’, and album closer ‘No One Lasts Forever’ featuring the impressive inclusion of director David Cronenberg – something’s gone wrong.
And when your existential questioning makes you seem more self-indulgent than profound or even ironically witty, the letdown only confirms that first impressions are often irretrievable.
‘Music, Fashion, Film’ is out now.