Album Review: Charli xcx - 'Music, Fashion, Film'

Charli xcx trades the persona for the person on her most honest album yet.

Charli xcx has returned with the follow up to the cultural smash hit that was Brat, and in typical fashion she has switched the formula up completely. Music, Fashion, Film leans more rock and punk where Brat leaned more pop and electronic, and it feels more confessional, more personal and more unapologetically Charli xcx than anything that's come before it.

Across the record, Charli works through her new heightened level of fame, her friendships and her relationships with those around her, from her new husband to the way her fans perceive her. Brat often felt like a heightened, exaggerated version of her persona. Music, Fashion, Film feels like the opposite of that, a project that is entirely, unmistakably her, from the eyebrow raising lyrics to the sonic direction itself. She isn't playing it safe on the follow up, and it works out admirably.

‘Rock Music’ sets the tone almost like an ultimatum. It took a few listens to click, but the hook (a stretched and chopped vocal take on the word rock) is undeniable, and it immediately weeds out the fake from the real. Where Brat opened on the feel good rush of '360', this is about as far from a typical peppy pop opener as she's gone, and that's the point.

'SS26' slots in next and sounds far better in album context than it did as a standalone single. The hook is an earworm, and lyrically it's about as close to the album's title as a song could get, painting a commodified, fame soaked world that starts to define the record's whole emotional landscape. Then comes 'card declined', the first real gut punch of the project. It's an impenitent banger, easily one of the biggest songs here, with Charli reveling in the inauthenticity of retail therapy. Luxury purchases are just paper over the cracks, no amount of handbags, jewellery or sofas covering up the misery underneath. It's a message buried cleverly inside an anthemic, euphoric sound.

'camera' might be the best hook on the album, arguably one of the best of her career. It opens as poppy as this record gets, all glittering keys, almost sounding like a Brat leftover, before turning into something more vulnerable. Charli described the track as being about the tension between a performer and the lens pointed at them, tempting and exciting one moment, unbearably exposing and embarrassing the next. The refrain about how it makes her feel is hypnotic, repeated almost to the point of ad nauseam, and it won't be the last time that idea resurfaces. Despite how gorgeous the track sounds, the lyrics cut close, a woman who was famous for a decade before Brat now reckoning with a scrutiny that's only intensified since.

'2007' functions almost as an interlude here, a nostalgic indie throwback that sees her lean back into her old pop bag, again it feels like something that wandered in from the Brat era. It's a breather before the album's most poignant moment. 'I’m Afraid' is Charli at her most vulnerable, most honest, most real, a genuine ballad that slows everything down and lets her sit with her doubts. It’s an ode to her husband George Daniel, who Charli praises for being able to balance her identity, her insecurities, her fears about her own ability as a performer and as a person. The chorus is contemplative, Charliwrestling with who she is before the track collapses into a grungey guitar outro and cuts off abruptly.

From there, 'Yeah' bursts back into a driving, guitar led catharsis, all attitude before it explodes into pure joy, and 'Wink Wink' delivers another one of this album's many great hooks, its deadpan delivery quintessentially Charli. 'Persona' leans hardest into the rock influence yet, guitars that sound lifted from an old Oasis record and a chorus built to be shouted back at her live shows, carelessly gliding over its own venom.

'magic metal montana' softens things again, a love letter to her friend and longtime collaborator A. G. Cook, tender and specific in the way it lists out the small details of a real friendship rather than overselling it, her subdued delivery adding to the honesty of the whole thing. And honesty, more than anything else, is what this album has been building towards.

The album closes on 'no one lasts forever', featuring a spoken appearance from director David Cronenberg, the two of them turning the closing moments of the record towards mortality, fame and the fact that nothing, however big, sticks around forever. It's a fittingly weighty way to end her most profound project yet.

Going into this record, the question was always going to be how does she possibly top Brat. She's done it by making an album only Charli xcx could make; so true to herself that its greatness feels undeniable. Where Brat was a blazing commercial explosion, Music, Fashion, Film is something more encapsulating and enigmatic, proof that one of the brightest stars in modern music has no intention of dimming.

Words by Alex Peters

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