Decoding Charli XCX’s new album, Music, Fashion, Film

Charli XCX needed a break.

His sixth album, Brat, was the kind of album that you could truly call era-defining, without being accused of exaggerating its importance.

Experimental but accessible songs like Guess, Apple and 360 took the star to new heights of fame.

His album was included in Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential campaign, and the Collins English Dictionary updated its definition of Brat to acknowledge its use as an adjective characterizing the music’s “confident, independent, and hedonistic attitude.”

After a year of grueling touring, the singer accepted several acting roles, wrote the soundtrack to Emerald Fennel’s adaptation of Wuthering Heights, and married her longtime partner George Daniel.

But instead of settling down, he found himself back in the studio.

“Suddenly inspiration hit me,” he says. “I suddenly felt like I had something to say, so I ran with it.”

Over the course of a few weeks, he performed 11 short, guitar-driven songs trying to make sense of the whirlwind he’d been through for two years.

The resulting album, titled Music, Fashion, Film, is smart, self-referential, funny, hostile, and full of moments that will tickle your inner earworm.

Significantly, deliberately, Not Brat 2.0.

“If I had made another album with more emphasis on dance, it would have been really difficult, really sad.” She told Vogue in the album’s first interview:, external.

“Being boring means dying on the spot.” added a newsletter to his fans, external. “Give up, give up, go home, stay home, end it all.”

All in all, there is a lot to uncover in the music and lyrics. Here’s what we learned.