Release date: 24th July 2026
Record label: Atlantic Records
On ‘Music, Fashion, Film’, Charli xcx embraces her identity as an artist, looking inward to recognise the diverse feelings that come with this. Across the three realms of her creativity outlined in the album’s title, Charli addresses both highs and lows – from experiencing intense inspiration and fearlessness, to confronting apprehension and insecurity. But in the face of fear, Charli’s desire for expression and creativity prevails, making her latest album a dauntless sonic reinvention that urges her listeners to seize the moment themselves.
‘Rock Music’ is the opening track, and the lead single from the roll out of ‘Music, Fashion, Film’, ushering in the record’s more abrasive, grungy sound. Its chopped, repetitive guitar riffs emblemise Charli’s proclamation that inspiration has again struck her, amidst her own concerns that her creative spark might abandon her following the release of her game changing album ‘BRAT’. Charli celebrates her friends as being a key part of this, with the song’s video featuring two very significant players in her career: longtime collaborators A.G. Cook and Finn Keane, who she worked with once again on this new album.
On ‘SS26’, Charli analyses her past, rejecting the person she once was as someone else entirely. The listener senses and perhaps relates to these feelings of insecurity over who we have been in the past, which creates unease but hope against Charli’s idea that you can reinvent yourself – something she has done many times across her work. Linking back to the song’s title, Charli sings of the purely superficial or even vain comforts (such as fashion) that subdue us in the face of the world’s problems, despite the hopelessness in the repeated line “Nothing’s gonna save us, not music, fashion, or film”. Driving tension throughout the track, particularly against the pleasant, clean minimalism it puts forward sonically, means Charli perfectly represents the anxieties that plague the modern world.
Charli sounds mellow and melancholic on ‘Card Declined’, bored and unhappy with the superficiality of the music industry. She laments the constant pressure on her to “buy a smile” and a “personality” as someone in the public eye, which could be inferred as a pressure that exists disparately for women in these spaces. The track incorporates the B-side to ‘Rock Music’ in its outro, ‘I Keep Thinking Bout You Every Single Day and Night’, which depicts feelings of obsession for another person. Its inclusion works to strengthen Charli’s portrayal of the industry’s obsession with enforcing images for artists to pursue and promote.
‘Camera’ is a sure highlight of the album, centring on Charli’s desire to reinvent herself creatively. Looped guitars open the track before Charli completely bares her heart, describing the emotive experience of finding new ways to express (or escape) herself and do the thing she loves – which is to create. She admits her apprehension to branch into film due to her age, which fizzles out against her overwhelming hunger to evolve artistically, something she satisfies in a fulfilling new way when she finds herself in front of a camera. If this record confirms anything, it’s that Charli lives for her art, and devotes herself unrelentingly to it.
‘2007’ stands as a cathartically light-hearted track, with vocals that remind me of something you’d hear on her 2020 album ‘How I’m Feeling Now’, and guitars and drums that wouldn’t sound out of place on an indie track by the likes of The Strokes. But this is a tone that quickly shifts moving onto ‘I’m Afraid’, where Charli grapples with the insecurities she faces away from her professional life. She confesses her fear that these have the potential to “ruin” her relationship with her husband (The 1975 drummer George Daniel), marking one of the most deeply intimate moments on the record.
The demo-like production of the album results in a punky attitude on ‘Yeah’, calling back to some of Charli’s earliest musical inspirations, which came from bands like The Slits. Its simple lyrics generate a sense of confusion through enduring contradiction, tracing the journey from apprehension to assurance that you might experience in all areas of your life – in work, relationships, or in taking your creativity in a new direction.
‘Wink Wink’ commands playfulness in its coy lyrics and music video, with Charli using irony to reflect on the ways she has evolved as a person and an artist. This enables her to illustrate how people’s disbelief that she can change leads to her being misunderstood, highlighting that what really matters is that she knows herself. As she has done in countless interviews surrounding the album she encourages her listeners to stay true to themselves and disregard the oppressive opinions of other people.
On ‘Persona’, Charli picks up on her discussions of celebrity life from earlier in the album. Much like on ‘Card Declined’, Charli expresses her disdain for her celebrity “persona” and the pressure to maintain a particular look for the cameras. Alongside this, the track can simultaneously be understood to reveal the difficulties of navigating an industry full of personas, where it is a challenge to find authenticity. It recalls the ‘BRAT’ song, ‘Girl, so confusing’, where Charli previously broke down this complex side to the music industry, especially for women.
Mirroring ‘Rock Music’, Charli reinforces the importance of collaboration and friendship within her music on ‘Magic Metal Montana’, a song of appreciation for her friend and collaborator A.G. Cook. She sings of this bond as one that transcends her work, describing how important A.G. is in her personal life too – highlighting the ability of music to forge friendships, something her community of fans will undoubtedly relate to. While feeling seen and understood is presented as a mostly introspective feeling elsewhere on the record, this song is assuring in that it conveys how friendship can afford you this validation too.
The album’s closing track, ‘No One Lasts Forever’, culminates in an extremely intimate discussion of what it means to be an artist. It features a recording of famed director David Cronenberg (‘The Fly’, ‘Crash’, ‘Videodrome’) recounting an incident where he collapsed in the street. His statement that, in those moments, he wasn’t thinking about his art but rather his family and his life, causes a shift at the very end of the track list. While there is a presentation of art surviving its artist, their legacy withstanding time, we ultimately hear Charli come to grips here with the volatile nature of being an artist, but a human first. The listener is let in on her discovery that, although her art consumes her in many facets of her life, what will prove most important in the end are the memories she carries with her, along with the people she shared these with.
Charli’s conscientious dissection of her identity and emotions as an artist on ‘Music, Fashion, Film’ is ultimately a process of becoming fearless. By baring her soul and inviting her listeners to experience this with her, she cements herself as an ever-growing inspiration to a younger generation of creatives, imploring them to chase their creative desires and disregard their fear of judgement.
