I’ve Spent a lot of time thinking about how Charli XCX must be feeling about Music, Fashion, Film. After your album defines a broader cultural movement, where do you go from there?
The answer, it seems, is inwards (and kind of outwards, but not really). I’m delighted the album isn’t brat 2.0 and that she feels confident to take a risk and try something new, and alongside this change in sound I think we see a much deeper, more introspective version of Charli across Music, Fashion, Film. The tongue in cheek, fun side of Charli is still there and she addresses a lot of the themes with a humourous lens at times, but she’s definitely sharing more this time around.
In some ways final track No One Lasts Forever sees Charli reconciling these very feelings I’m talking about. Ostensibly about the death of the artist, its also almost a love letter to be kinder to herself at points, and possibly a reminder to the world that she’s ready to move on, there’s something in the repeated motif of “They are dead, they are gone, no one lasts forever” that really hammers this home at the end of the song.
It is these repetitive lyrical motifs that define many of the tracks on Music, Fashion, Film. On my personal favourite 2007, the repeated “I can take you to heaven like it’s 2007, pop star in my bedroom like it’s 2007” has made me smile since first hearing it. It’s also solidly stuck in my head and it’s this song structure that allows the tracks to remain catchy whilst leaving you deep diving into the verses to uncover the songs deeper meanings.
One thing I love about Charli is how she’s messy. She doesn’t have this neat pop star persona, but nor is she a wildly chaotic “rockstar” cliche. She’s complex, often conflicted within her own thoughts and I want to say she’s comfortable putting all of that on show, yet I don’t think she always is, but she does it anyway. And that’s exactly what I mean by messy. It’s this essence of her that resonates through Music, Fashion, Film. You hear it from the first lines of Rock Music “ Me and my friends, we go out/ We take pictures and make stuff together/ And sometimes we cry/ We kiss each other, real incestuous vibes/ (I knew you’d like that)”. We get party girl, serious, sassy and funny in the first moments of the record and this happens over and over both lyrically and musically.
The result is that, genre-wise it’s definitely a difficult album to define if you’re the type of person that likes your albums in those little boxes. I think anyone trying to call it a ‘rock album’ has sadly missed the point – it rock but make it Charli XCX, not “Charli XCX does rock music”. The dance music elements she’s known for, the layers, loops and driving drum beats, are still a feature but there is a punkier, rockier edge – distortion, heavier guitars and a power to her vocals – also mixed in there. Because of this I think it could be quite a polarising album. People will either get what she’s done, or they won’t.
And honestly, if you listen to individual tracks in isolation, it’s hard at times to see how they go together. Taking wink wink and Persona as examples – two tracks that are back to back on the record, the first is light, fun dance-pop yet Persona is darker, heavier almost Muse-esque. On paper it should be disconcerting, but as a collective, they just work. There’s enough overlap within individual elements to fuse it all together and enough variety that no one song jars the listening experience. The singles were also wisely chosen as they offer a great taste of what to expect. They softened the transition of moving on from brat but also managed to save some surprises for the album. I personally love Music Fashion Film and having now heard it in it’s entirety, it’s hard to imagine her having done anything else at this point in her career.
There’s so much more I want to unpick and discuss and I definitely might return to this album in a couple of months and dig deeper. Charli’s retained long time collaborators AJ Cook and Finn Keane across the entirety of Music, Fashion, Film and this feels like one of those albums that would only exist due to the safety net of those strong relationships.
I’m also fascinated by the marketing, the ‘less is more’ attitude, the cinema streaming of the album before its release and so much more. Is this a reflection of the overall essence of the album – it’s not a flashy “big box” vibe this time around, does she just not want to hit the promo circuit as hard (genuinely no judgement here) or is this the freedom of such great success that she can do something in a way she chooses? Has she now finally earned the trust to put out an album in the way she’s always wanted?
Which leads me on to my final musings. I’m always fascinated to look back at an artist’s catalogue and see those little twinkles of a future album. The moments when you realise “we wouldn’t have this if we didn’t have that”, and Music, Fashion, Film feels like one of those albums that deserves that journey back in time. It’s too early right now, I need more time with the album and more time to look back – but was the rewording of brat songs over and over a catalyst to further pushing her sound, are there twinklings of 2019’s Charli on there that have been scraped up and reimagined? My gut says yes, my brain says I need more time, but my point: Music Fashion Film might have been the album she’s quietly spent a lifetime curating.
Listen to Music, Fashion, Film here.
Find out more about Charli XCX here.