Charli XCX’s follow-up to her culture defining Brat is a much more vulnerable, burned-out, and jaded take on what follows superstardom.
Release date: July 24, 2026 | Atlantic | Website | Instagram
If you’ve been paying attention to Charli XCX‘s music since before Brat, then you’ll know this isn’t her first effort in trying to articulate her feelings about fame. Her hyperawareness of her place in the music world and celebrity culture has been ever-present in some capacity since the early days, culminating in her swing-and-miss Crash. It’s the album version of finding a movie by a great director, with a great cast, and an interesting premise that you’ve never seen, and after you watch it you immediately understand why no one’s ever told you it exists.
There’s clearly something about her experience with fame that’s eating at Charli’s soul that she wants to try and get out. I imagine her journey going from a huge (albeit basic and replaceable) pop act that quickly flopped, got shelved, spent the next five years writing bigger artists’ biggest hits, while in the background helping pioneer what would define pop’s next era before eventually being allowed to release full albums again. Not that it did anything for her. She had the exact same audience she built and held the exact same place as a critical darling (besides Crash), and for a time nothing really changed. Then Brat drops, and she’s one of the biggest artists in the world again. I get why this would eat at her. I just don’t know what it is she wants to say, and I don’t think Charli has it figured out completely on Music, Fashion, Film either.
If I have to be honest, I’m not positive Charli is a good enough writer to ever completely get the message she wants across, but she is absolutely getting better at making her point clearer. There’s not a lot to compare it to, but “I’m Afraid” is one of, if not the darkest songs of Charli’s career. It’s an incredibly bleak depiction of how she views herself as a partner and her thoughts on how her inability to slow her career down may doom her marriage and how unsure she is if she could even stop herself from going down this path. The negative self-view continues on “Card Declined” as Charli imagines a shopping trip consisting of her trying and failing to buy a new version of herself. Music, Fashion, Film is the bluntest Charli has ever been about her growing pessimism around fame, and it’d be fascinating to know exactly how much the recent boost led to this. “Persona” is both an excellent track and a fascinating look into Charli’s resentment of the front she’s had to put on since Brat came out, that I’d love to see more of growing forward.
“No One Lasts Forever” is a track that absolutely has to land, and it does, but it still leaves me a bit unsure despite the fact it serves as the albums thesis. Charli’s end of the track almost entirely drops the rock facade and returns to her hyperpop ways, as she delivers a quick recap of her struggling to come to terms with her new fame before deciding that it doesn’t really matter in the end. David Cronenberg’s (yes, that one) end is a perfectly selected spoken word outro recorded from a conversation between the two as he tells Charli how important art is to both of them, neither has any control over if their careers will or won’t live on past them. I’m not sure that’s something Charli believes. If it is, Music, Fashion, Film is a testament to how hard she’s struggling to make that belief mesh with the life she lives.
The lighter moments thematically still work very well and show off Charli’s skill at writing incredibly addictive, bite-sized tracks. “2007” is pretty similar to a previous Charli track, “1999”. Both are heavily nostalgic for the days before fame, but while “1999” is much more excited to look into the past, its follow-up feels much more cautious of what the future holds. My broader question of still not being sure what this change in outlook means to her still stands. I’ve always loved the sarcastic, mumbly affect Charli occasionally puts on, and “Wink Wink” is one of her best displays. It’s also one of the better instrumentals from AG Cook and Easyfun. The best comes on “Camera”, one of the most poppy tracks on Music, Fashion, Film and one of the best at showing Charli’s lack of confidence and self doubt.
Just to be clear, while it’s not Brat, Pop 2, or how i’m feeling now, it’s also nowhere near as bad as Crash – even if it is her most similar album. Crash also isn’t that bad, relatively speaking. Music, Fashion, Film, is much more focused musically as opposed to Crash’s plainness (outside of “Yuck”, that song goes hard) and its lyrical themes actually can be understood without needing to go to the Wikipedia page. It’s an improvement in every single possible aspect, but it’s still not without a couple hiccups. “Yeah” stinks. There’s not much of a point to the song conceptually, and it’s very plain production wise. If you wanna add another fun track any of the b-sides would have been better. I don’t love “SS26” either. It’s a little too plain, nothing really adventurous or memorable about it.
Bringing up the similarities between athletes and artists normally results in the more artistically minded feeling uncomfortable, just seeing any of the recent discourse around Timothée Chalamet, but I think Charli is in a place a lot of athletes end up mentally. Spite is an excellent motivator, but unless your name is Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan, and you’re a somewhat mentally well human being, it can only push you for so long once everyone’s been proven wrong. I think you can really tell that this persona she’s donned in the quest for fame has really drained Charli, and she’s not completely sure what to do next, and I’m not sure if she’ll ever be willing to drop the personas enough to fully express these wants.
Despite my critiques on some of her writing, I do greatly appreciate how willing Charli is to admit and acknowledge her own hypocrisy. It’s part of why I’m not bored with the repeated subject matter and think this is so hard for her to clearly communicate. Another of Charli’s better qualities is her willingness to share her struggles, and a few missteps aside Music, Fashion, Film serves as an incredibly interesting inflection point as she tries to rediscover what the rest of her career should be.
