What are critics saying about new Charli XCX album? | indy100

Photo by Aurore Marechal/Getty Images

Charli XCX's new album, Music, Fashion, Film,, was released on Friday - but is the verdict?

The British singer announced her eighth studio album earlier this year, and shared the album cover which features a black and white photo of three icons in music, fashion and film - musician John Cale, fashion designer Marc Jacobs, and film director Martin Scorsese.

Consisting of 11 songs and lasting 30 minutes, 5 seconds, Music, Fashion, Film, released her first single 'Rock Music' back in May this along with the black and white aesthetic signaled a pivot from her 2024 album brat which was her mainstream breakthrough, becoming a cultural phenomenon and winning her three Grammys.

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"All of my albums work in opposites. They repel against each other, and that’s the connective tissue. I knew when I was making [BRAT] that I was never going to make that record again. It’s not creatively rewarding for me to make the same thing twice," the singer told Rolling Stone.

"I think the dance floor is dead, so now we're making rock music," was a lyric from 'Rock Music' that sparked much debate, in which Charli later clarified on Instagram "I never said I was making a rock album."

The final track on the album "No One Lasts Forever" includes the only feature on the record with film director, David Cronenberg.

What are critics saying?

Photo by Aurore Marechal/Getty Images

Overall, Music, Fashion, Film has received mixed to positive reviews with some praising Charli's work and how it explores her sense of identity following her commerical success, with others said the work doesn't live up to the cultural juggernaut that was Brat.

The Independent's Roisin O'Connor wrote in her three-star review, "On Music Fashion Film, there are more than a few instances where you feel like you’re witnessing the creative process in action – you’re inside it, rather than enjoying the final, polished version."

"On more than half of its 11 songs, ugly, distorted synths drown out any semblance of emotional clarity; the lyrics deal in cringeworthy, surface-level platitudes...," The Telegraph''s Poppie Platt, giving the album two-out-of-five stars.

In her five-star review, The Guardian''s Laura Snapes, describes the album as "the essence of another gorgeously astute and disarmingly deep album about the instability of identity – not just as a vanguard songwriter striving for evolution, but how much we can ever know one another, or even ourselves."

"On the follow-up to BRAT, the pop auteur pivots to a referential, proudly tossed-off rock sound that offers mystifying glances behind the curtain of stardom," Pitchfork's Anna Gaca, who scored the album an 8.2.

The New York Times's Lindsay Zoladz, called Music, Fashion, Film, a "proudly prickly, satisfyingly scuzzy" eighth album but "one component in what now feels like a long and occasionally fatiguing pop performance piece about how one follows an unexpected cultural juggernaut that launched its creator to a new level of fame."

How are fans reacting?

Similarly to critics, fans have taken to social media to share their thoughts on Music, Fashion, Film and they also appear to be divided in their opinion but leaning more positive.

One person said, "top 3 in her discography period."

"So there’s this album of the year and this generational talent and this once in a lifetime artist and this musical and just all around genius," a second person said.

A third person added, "The issue with much of Charli’s new music is how it mostly describes how cool she is; in the past you were entrusted to glean that yourself. an illustrative line from the new record: 'i’m sitting on the floor of a parisian apartment with a french girl talking ’bout philosophy.'"

"New Charli album feels like it was cooked up within nothing more than a week. and i mean that in a positive way. she just had some stuff to say and said it without trying to make a grand gesture out of it," a fourth person commented.

A fifth person reacted, "Anyone hating on the new charli xcx album, you don’t know ball and you’re just not tapped in."

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