Charli xcx – Music, Fashion, Film Album Review: A Brave Gamble That Falls Short
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Between 2024 and 2026, Charli xcx has been navigating the absolute zenith of her musical career. It all exploded in 2024 with her monumental album BRAT, a cultural landmark that defined an entire “brat summer” and catapulted her to the peak of global pop relevance. Like so many others, I was completely consumed by that record. Yet, reaching that level of ubiquitous fame brought immense pressure to sustain her momentum—a daunting trajectory reminiscent of Ed Sheeran’s post-Divide landscape. Add in a wave of high-profile industry friction, like her brief public beef with Taylor Swift, and Charli was forced to dodge an overwhelming storm of expectations while trying to keep her creative focus intact.
Despite that weight, she didn’t retreat. Earlier this year, Charli returned with the soundtrack for Emerald Fennell’s hit film Wuthering Heights—a project I personally praised in my review. While it wasn’t a direct sequel to BRAT, its raw, gothic sound proved thoroughly captivating. Tracks like “Dying For You” and “Out Of Myself” demonstrated that her creative engine was still firing on all cylinders, proving she could handle the post-phenomenon pressure with remarkable poise.
Yet, Charli refused to coast. By April, she was teasing a new chapter across social media before dropping a volatile proclamation: “The dancefloor is dead / so now we’re making rock music.” Frankly speaking, I was thrown for a total loop. After the high-octane club euphoria of BRAT and the haunting atmosphere of Wuthering Heights, the idea of pivoting from auto-tuned electronic pop to distorted rock sounded downright suicidal. I genuinely worried it might be a career-ending gamble, as leaping between such wildly different sonic lanes felt almost dangerously reckless.
My anxiety accelerated further when she dropped the lead single, “Rock Music.” The track felt like a thoroughly uninspired rock song from an entry-level label artist—the production was overwhelmingly noisy, and Charli’s vocal delivery lacked the sharp punch of her recent work. It felt like an absolute trash single from an artist of her caliber, and I hated it upon release just as much as I do right now.
Now that the full record is finally here, I have to challenge her initial thesis: the dancefloor is far from dead, even if Charli herself grew exhausted by that sound. The culture is still riding the high of BRAT with anthems like “Von Dutch” and “365,” and 2026 is actually proving to be a massive year for electronic music—just look at Madonna’s latest project. That said, I can’t call Charli’s risky gamble a total failure. She didn’t crash, and I genuinely respect her artistic bravery for attempting such a sharp left turn. Music, Fashion, Film is certainly not a terrible album, but it is nowhere near a masterclass like BRAT, nor is it as hauntingly memorable as Wuthering Heights. Instead of a triumphant rock statement, it feels like a thoroughly middle-of-the-road pop experiment. Ultimately, her ten-day recording sessions at Rue Boyer Studios in Paris weren’t in vain, but they didn’t yield a masterpiece.
While major critics are lavishing it with praise, I simply cannot join the chorus. It feels like we listened to two completely different records.
Production-wise, Music, Fashion, Film delivers a remarkably solid and visceral soundscape that immediately grabs your attention. The sonic arrangement is built around a chaotic, hectic, and almost horror-infused energy. It feels abundantly clear that Charli drew heavy inspiration from the horror genre for this record, a direction that makes complete sense considering legendary filmmaker and body-horror icon David Cronenberg was affiliated with the project.
This tactile, abrasive atmosphere sounds surprisingly cohesive, especially after her decision to utterly abandon her signature auto-tuned maximalism. The most fascinating element of this production shift is how her palette transitions from polished, digital textures to raw, analogue grit. Heavy distortion leads the charge, allowing Charli’s rougher vocal delivery to lock in effortlessly with the gritty guitar instrumentation. The soundscape is heavily dominated by processed guitars that strafe across the mix, fracturing right alongside her voice in a direct rejection of hyperpop’s sleeker tropes.
Operating as an insular core production trifecta, A. G. Cook, Finn Keane, and Charli xcx intentionally chose to escape into their own insular world rather than relying on external musical reference points, yielding a final product that feels distinctly insular, noisy, and unyielding.
Songwriting-wise, the album serves mostly as an “ode to process,” styled as a curated search for selfhood within its three central artistic pillars. The bright spot here is that Charli wisely uses her pen to directly address much of the recent criticism aimed at her. However, the record overall suffers from a frustrating lack of the sharp, inescapable hooks that defined BRAT or Wuthering Heights.
While select tracks display genuinely strong narrative songwriting, the project is bogged down by relentlessly repetitive choruses that significantly undercut its replay value. The headline phrase on “Rock Music”—”I think the dance floor is dead / So now we’re making rock music”—feels particularly grating, making the track a tough relisten. Even worse, cuts like “Yeah” rely on a mind-bogglingly sparse draft of just twelve total words, pushing minimalist songwriting past a compelling boundary into genuinely lazy territory.
Despite the record’s overall pacing issues, a select group of standouts manages to rise above the noise. Tracks like “SS26,” “Camera,” “Wink Wink,” and “Persona” easily emerge as the album’s strongest offerings. Among them, “SS26” reigns supreme as the undisputed crown jewel of the project. It effortlessly pairs razor-sharp production with the most sophisticated songwriting on the entire LP. Charli brilliantly tackles the absurdity of cancel culture and the post-BRAT backlash, delivering slick, defense-mechanism lines like “I was hacked / It got taken out of context, obviously” that prove her pen is still lethal when she moves past repetitive loops.
On the production front, “Camera” steals the spotlight. Its distorted arrangement offers a thrilling, fleeting glimpse back into the chaotic euphoria of the BRAT era, with Charli delivering a silky vocal performance that glides over the noise—even if its underwhelming chorus prevents it from reaching true perfection. “Persona” stands as another vital pillar, showcasing a rare moment of mature, introspective songwriting that grounds the album’s chaotic atmosphere.
Conversely, the track “Yeah” feels like a completely superfluous addition; reduced to a handful of sparse words used as a bridge, it serves little purpose in the broader tracklist. Other mid-album cuts like “Card Declined,” “2007,” and “I’m Afraid” fall into a frustrating middle ground—instrumentally flawless, yet bogged down by lazy hooks that keep them from matching the heights of “SS26.”
Finally, the project limps across the finish line with “No One Lasts Forever,” featuring a spoken-word performance from legendary director David Cronenberg. While the central thesis that fame and existence are fleeting is a compelling thematic note to end on, Cronenberg repeating “They are dead, they are gone, no one lasts forever” nearly thirty times in a row turns an intriguing artistic decision into an exhausting endurance test, leaving you practically begging for the final fade-out.
Ultimately, Music, Fashion, Film is not an outright failure, but it lands as a frustratingly mediocre entry in Charli xcx’s discography. It certainly falls far short of being a masterclass on par with BRAT or Wuthering Heights. If forced to rank her recent three-album run, this record sits comfortably at the very bottom.
While the production itself is undeniably stellar—offering a chaotic, tactile grit—and Charli’s raw performance fits the unyielding atmosphere, the songwriting is weighed down by noticeable filler and lazy, repetitive hooks. Unlike the cultural staying power of her previous records, Music, Fashion, Film lacks a single defining track that feels built to stand the test of time or linger in the conversation for years to come.
Charli deserves genuine credit for her artistic bravery in refusing to coast on an easy formula, but bold ambition alone doesn’t guarantee a masterpiece. What we’re left with is a middle-of-the-road experiment that proves stepping out of your comfort zone doesn’t always yield a triumph.
[Rating: 6/10]
- Favorite Tracks: SS26, Camera, Persona
- Least Favorite Tracks: Rock Music, Yeah
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