Charli XCX’s Music, Fashion, Film branded ‘messy and wonderful’ in first reactions

Brat icon Charli XCX is back with a new album, Music, Fashion, Film, and fans are eating it up.

The 33-year-old “Von dutch” hitmaker’s new album arrives just two years after her viral, era-defining Brat took over the world.

While Brat was an electropop dance album, Music, Fashion, Film sees the singer move towards rock music while still maintaining her pop-oriented style. Her seventh album sees her reunite with longtime collaborators A. G. Cook and Finn Keane, who also worked on Brat.

“Rock Music” was the lead single, followed by “SS26”, “Wink Wink” and “Camera.” But now the full 11-track album is out, fans have weighed in on their listening experience.

“Charli XCX is such a good lyricist,” one fan wrote about the new album. 

“All of her songwriting LOOKS like it’s so bad and breaks all the ‘rules’ that songwriters tend to abide by, but the soundscapes she can construct around her writing makes it so it always works out in the end. Really great artistry at play.”

Another posted that Music, Fashion, Film is “fabulous.” They continued: “So lucid and messy and wonderful.”

One fan also noted: “’Persona’ is my fav song on the new Charli joint as of right now but the last 43 seconds of ‘Card Declined’ is my favourite moment on the album because I really loved ‘I Keep Thinking Bout You Every Single Day and Night’. Overall lots of distortion and weird voices. Fun!!!!!”

There was some hesitancy to Charli’s new music after her declaration on “Rock Music”: “The dance floor is dead. Now we’re making rock music.”

‘Really great artistry at play’

The album cover artwork features John Cale, Marc Jacobs and Martin Scorsese as representations of music, fashion and film, respectively

Following the album’s release, fans declared: “Anyone hating on the new Charli XCX album, you don’t know ball and you’re just not tapped in.”

Others announced: “The Strokes and Charli XCX having the same album release date is like ‘Barbenheimer’ for bisexual people.”

However, the early critical reception of Music, Fashion, Film has been mixed.

Rolling Stone gave the album four stars, citing it as a “a brilliant, catchy and often very funny 30-minute treatise on the machinery of fame.”

However, other outlets were less taken with Charli’s new music. The Telegraph wrote the singer’s “artistic reinvention is smothered by grating production and empty, self-conscious songs.”

Music, Fashion, Film is out now.