As anticipated with a blend of wariness and excitement since the triumph of “Brat,” the new album from the British pop superstar delivers a rock reinvention that is as audacious as it is convincing.
“Let’s go shopping, I’m going to buy myself a handbag / I’m going to buy myself shoes, I’m going to buy myself a smile.” In the faux-superficial roll call of the highly successful Card Declined, which echoes the ironic mantras of Kim Gordon, Charli XCX narrates how consumption (including objects that allow us to exist socially) cannot fill the void, not even the romantic one. After the blunt sting of a declined card, a lovers’ confession reveals what cannot be bought: “I keep on thinking ’bout you every single day and night / I keep on thinking ’bout you every single day and night.”” As biting as the Riot Grrrls could be, as romantic as a Cyndi Lauper, Charlotte Aitchison reimagines today her pop language with a jubilant, electric nonchalance… and verve.
Thirty minutes in. A few months after the gothico-contemplative soundtrack of Wuthering, the successor to the cult Brat veers away from the foundations of hyperpop and dance music variants to seize the guitars—without abandoning that deliberate fascination with fashion fantasies. Around Charli XCX, one finds her co-producers Finn Keane and A.G. Cook—who can savor the ode Magic Metal Montana dedicated to her. If some sonic demonstrations feel dispensable, such as 2007 and I’m Afraid, at the heart (soft) of Music, Fashion, Film, or a borderline mushy Persona, others are unstoppable, like the nagging self-reflexive Camera, or the minimal Yeah. The apparent simplicity of this last track epitomizes the project’s musical intent: after turning hyperpop into a legible and almost conceptual object, Charli XCX does not summon rock so much as she manipulates its diverse sonic elements. In its bratty core, though, they’re still cheeky little brats. The riff here belongs to the realm of slacker rock, drawing from Bikini Kill, Pixies, Yeah Yeah Yeahs…
50 Shades of Ego in the Age of Social Media
Behind the casualness under the reverberation, every saturated effect, every rhythmic misstep, and every dissonant detour are the product of a collaborative writing session in the Parisian studios on Rue Boyer. As for the semantic thread, delivered through terse, punchy lyrics, it slots perfectly into the body of work of the English singer, who has long contemplated the fifty shades of the ego in the age of social media. How does one build a public persona without getting lost in a manufactured self? How does one be (genuinely) present in the world while exploring multiple versions of oneself? How does one escape the anxiety of time passing?
“Nothing will save us, neither the music, nor the fashion, nor the cinema,” she asserts in the ballad SS26. There’s almost a absurd irony here, especially when she presents on her album cover icons without whom our existence would be decidedly less exalted: John Cale, Marc Jacobs, and Martin Scorsese. Yet it also signals that despite the fans, the red carpets, and the dollars’ trailers, we are inexorably, at the sunset of our lives, confronted with our reflection in the mirror as the personas eventually fall. It makes perfect sense, then, that No One Lasts Forever, inhabited by the spectral voice of David Cronenberg, reminds us that “nothing lasts forever” — which is why Charli XCX sings that she “fears nobody.” Even if rock ’n’ roll will never truly die, it is perpetually resurrected by sometimes unlikely followers who seize the opportunity to twist it as it has always deserved to be.
Music, Fashion, Film (Warner). Release on July 24.
