The Brat era, which defined much of the recent pop landscape, has officially come to a close for Charli XCX. As the artist prepares for her next musical chapter, she is signaling a significant departure from the dance-heavy sound that propelled her to recent heights, opting instead for a hard pivot into rock music.
A recent feature in British Vogue offers a glimpse into this new sonic direction, describing a track where heavily processed guitars strafe the room before fracturing alongside Charli’s vocals. In the song, she candidly declares, “I think the dance floor is dead, so now we’re making rock music.”
The article further details another composition, characterized by “queasy feedback” that underscores a “dead-eyed incantation” about the performative nature of identity and the desire to reinvent oneself. Charli reflects on the track, noting, “It crosses over into how you can dress up who you are and become the ideal fantasy that you want to be in that moment. Everybody is performing, in a way.”
While the album was still in development at the time of the interview, Charli explained the necessity of this shift. She admitted that continuing to produce dance-oriented music would have felt emotionally taxing, noting, “If I’d made another album that felt more dance-leaning, it would have felt really hard, really sad.”
Instead, she is embracing the challenge of redefining her perspective through a rock lens. “What’s interesting for me is to bend the possibilities of what my perspective on [rock music] could be,” she said, adding that the process has allowed her to seek out something more internal and quiet compared to her previous work.
