Charli XCX
Music, Fashion, Film
ATLANTIC

Confession time: I didn’t care for Brat. Not its fuzzy message-no-message manifesto, not the overly awed critical reception given it by old white men critics, and certainly not its clumsy, clubby, melodyless appropriation of hyperpop best executed by the late, great SOPHIE. Having Charli XCX start fresh, then with the guitar-strewn Music, Fashion, Film is just fine by me—even if that meant borrowing the raw-nerve tenor of her True Romance debut and the self-satirist manner of 2022’s Crash. It’s better than fine, actually: It’s the stuff of savage, searing power-pop with primal, minimalist rhythms and a hint of sleek, sizzling electronics.

Without the so-called storyline of her recent past—save for some egoistic, naval-hazing self-aggrandizement, which is actually pretty wryly humorous—Music, Fashion, Film moves along at a fast, furious, sleazy, noisy clip as its narrator finds frustration at every turn. Without stutter-chop FX or over-robo-saturation in her vocals, you can genuinely feel what Charli is going through, whether she’s taking the piss during closer “No One Lasts Forever” (“I’m a better artist now / An excuse I tell myself to act selfishly”) or throwing herself into a manic panic over perceived loss of self on “I’m Afraid” (“I’m nothing without him / What if I ruin it / Take the ring”).

If there’s anything too meta or identity-political within the walls of Music, Fashion, Film, it’s happily going by too fast, too smartly, with too much earnest anxiety in her singing and writing for me to care. Especially as Charli and co-producing co-authors A. G. Cook and Finn Keane have set her up with the most tart, contagious melodies of her career (“SS26”), as well as her most frankly facetious (“Wink Wink”) and distortedly thunder-striking (emphasis on “striking”’ when it comes to the frenetic “Card Declined”). There’s even just enough studio frippery and hi-gloss heat to satisfy the most staticky hyperpop fan—it’s just congealed and concealed, subtly, within each beat, and compressed into the album’s rockist joie de vivre.

In that respect, and maybe for the first time, Charli, Cook, and Keane actually come across like a mad, bad power trio: a feline Cream, a genuinely likeable Green Day. For anyone who thinks that the awesome Music, Fashion, Film lacks the so-called cohesion, passion, or production twists of its immediate predecessor, listen again to Brat, if you must, then to this new album once more. And if you still don’t get it, I can’t help you.

FLOOD

The Tenth Anniversay Issue

REZN, Cycles in the Infinite Dream

The Creem, A Taste of Cherry

Charli XCX, Music, Fashion, Film

Sandra Ebejer

MUSIC, ART + CULTURE,DELIVERED STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX

MUSIC, ART + CULTURE,
DELIVERED STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX