{"id":16856,"date":"2026-07-25T14:40:23","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T09:40:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=16856"},"modified":"2026-07-25T14:40:23","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T09:40:23","slug":"charli-xcx-wrestles-with-greatness-on-music-fashion-film-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=16856","title":{"rendered":"Charli xcx Wrestles with Greatness on Music, Fashion, Film: Review"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/consequence.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Charli-XCX-Music-Fashion-Film-Review.jpg?quality=80\" \/><\/p>\n<div data-id=\"1613576\" data-title=\"Charli xcx Interrogates Her Own Greatness on Music, Fashion, Film: Review\" data-url=\"https:\/\/consequence.net\/2026\/07\/charli-xcx-music-fashion-film-review\/\" data-page=\"1\" data-pages=\"2\">\n<p>It takes a lot of nerve to place Martin Scorsese, John Cale, and Marc Jacobs on the cover art for a new album called <em><a href=\"https:\/\/consequence.net\/2026\/06\/charli-xcx-new-album-music-fashion-film\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Music, Fashion, Film<\/a>. <\/em>It\u2019s\u00a0three titans of three mediums that permeate our culture, and not a single frame of <a href=\"https:\/\/consequence.net\/artist\/charli-xcx\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Charli xcx<\/a> herself. The absence is the tell. A less interesting artist stages this cover as a coronation: <em>I belong among the greats, look who agrees.<\/em> Charli, fresh off the now-seminal <a href=\"https:\/\/consequence.net\/2024\/06\/charli-xcx-brat-review-new-album\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Brat<\/em><\/a> and its ensuing cultural wave, has earned the right to make that claim.<\/p>\n<p><em>Music, Fashion, Film<\/em> is not that album. Instead, Charli uses her seventh album to interrogate her own career and wrestle with the cost of pursing artistic greatness \u2014 especially set against the depersonalization of fame and, in the case of \u201cSS26\u201d and the David Cronenberg-featuring \u201cNo One Lasts Forever,\u201d the meaninglessness of it all. It\u2019s less a victory lap than a war between the persona she built and the self underneath it, between honesty, irony, earnestness, absurdity, and optimism. Using a rock-oriented palette and once again focusing on subverting expectations, Charli xcx crafts an album that destabilizes itself as often as it soars, resulting in an exceptional new chapter in her discography.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/vivid-seats.pxf.io\/c\/1882189\/952533\/12730?subId1=charli-xcx%2Amusic-fashion-film-button&amp;subId2=&amp;subId3=&amp;sharedid=&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vividseats.com%2Fcharli-xcx-tickets%2Fperformer%2F30249\" class=\"button button-ticket\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Get Charli xcx Tickets Here<\/a><\/p>\n<p>More than any of her projects so far, Charli pulls the rug out from underneath her audience. That instinct was apparent in the rollout itself: \u201cI think the dance floor is dead, so now we\u2019re making rock music\u201d set off months of speculation when it surfaced in her <a href=\"https:\/\/consequence.net\/2026\/04\/charli-xcx-is-making-a-rock-album\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">album-teasing <em>British Vogue<\/em> profile<\/a>, prompting Charli to publicly wave off the \u201crock album\u201d narrative as tabloid noise. But that quote turned out to be the thesis of <a href=\"https:\/\/consequence.net\/2026\/05\/charli-xcx-new-song-rock-music\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u201cRock Music\u201d<\/a> and a troll, all in one breath. The bait-and-switch goes deeper than a good bit: \u201cRock Music\u201d reveals that Charli is less interested in actually making rock music than in performing the <em>idea<\/em> of it, using genre as costume to dramatize themes of stardom and greatness.<\/p>\n<p>Related Video<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a tension produced by the earnestness of Charli\u2019s lyrics and the irony-tinged performance of \u201cRock Music,\u201d and that tension sustains throughout the album. This theme shows up most often in the choruses, where a refrain is repeated and glitched out like it ran into a 404 error. She fractures the chorus of \u201c2007\u201d to the point where it\u2019s a mess of DJ scratches and consonants. The refrain of \u201cCard Declined\u201d is a collage of commands and details that highlights the absurdity of Charli\u2019s quest to hide behind her clothing. And she\u2019s not making \u201crock music,\u201d she\u2019s making \u201cro-o-o-o-o-o-ock\u2026 music!,\u201d a line delivered so playfully that even the glitch on her voice feels human.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Charli xcx - Rock Music (Official Video)\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ox1Eemj8FDo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s also worth noting that the\u00a0<em>style<\/em> of rock music employed on\u00a0<em>Music, Fashion, Film<\/em> refers back to Charli, too. Where\u00a0<em>Brat<\/em> took inspiration from the brash, late 2000s electropop that would go on to empower Charli\u2019s early career, the new album finds her taking cues from the 2000s \u201cindie landfill\u201d era of British alternative rock, where many of these songs feel like\u00a0<em>Skins<\/em> soundtrack entries resized. \u201c2007\u201d references this nostalgic moment in her adolescence explicitly but positions it in conflict: \u201cPictures on the sofa become pictures on the screen\/ All from your apartm\u0435nt, you can shine bright like a star,\u201d she sings, setting the modern scenario of achieving TikTok fame against an alt-rock instrumental that echoes the innocence and purity of 2007-era Charli.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script>\n\t\t!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\n\t\tn.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;\n\t\tn.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=1;\n\t\tt.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,\n\t\tdocument,'script','https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n\t\tfbq('init', '1753966171496536');\n\t\tfbq('set','agent','tmgoogletagmanager', '1753966171496536');\n\t\tfbq('track', \"PageView\");\n\t<\/script><script defer crossorigin=\"anonymous\" src=\"https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/sdk.js#xfbml=1&#038;version=v7.0&#038;appId=434175690014\" nonce=\"6gwmbCtM\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It takes a lot of nerve to place Martin Scorsese, John Cale, and Marc Jacobs on the cover art for a new album called Music, Fashion, Film. It\u2019s\u00a0three titans of three mediums that permeate our culture, and not a single frame of Charli xcx herself. The absence is the tell. A less interesting artist stages&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16857,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/consequence.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Charli-XCX-Music-Fashion-Film-Review.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsweek-trending"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}