{"id":857470,"date":"2026-08-14T06:04:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T06:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/857470\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T06:04:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T06:04:10","slug":"raves-and-rock-34th-street-magazine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/857470\/","title":{"rendered":"Raves and Rock – 34th Street Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fresh off the Wuthering Heights soundtrack <\/a>in February, Charli XCX released her album Music, Fashion, Film<\/a> on July 24. The album is short, with a modest 30\u2013minute run time and 11 tracks in total. If fans are in need of more content, the album also has a companion film available on Youtube<\/a>. Charli officially announced her album via an Instagram post<\/a> with the cover featuring a black\u2013and\u2013white photo of John Cale<\/a>, Marc Jacobs<\/a>, and Martin Scorsese<\/a> photographed by collaborator on The Moment<\/a>, Aidan Zamiri<\/a>. Guitar\u2013heavy in nature, Charli\u2019s newest project ventures into a rock\u2013adjacent realm while still keeping that signature electronic feel.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The album answers the pressing question on audiences\u2019 minds\u2013how does one follow a phenomenon quite distinct and universal as Brat<\/a>? Charli\u2019s response? You don\u2019t. Music, Fashion, Film wasn\u2019t made with the intention to replicate Brat. In an interview with Rolling Stone<\/a>\u2019s Angie Martoccio, Charli elaborates on the interaction between her albums as \u201crepelling\u201d each other.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With \u201cRock Music<\/a>\u201d\u2014Charli\u2019s lead single released in May\u2014the album shows this departure from previous projects immediately. \u00a0Declaring the dance floor \u201cdead,\u201d the single marries glitchy vocals with heavy guitar. Opening with her smoking out the window, the \u201cRock Music\u201d music video directed by Aidan Zimiri heavily uses imagery of cigarettes and the electric atmosphere of a mosh\u2013pit\u2013like scene amid glitchy shots to accompany the vocals. \u00a0The music video also features cameos from A.G. Cook<\/a> and Finn Keane<\/a>\u2014both collaborators on her previous and present album along with her spouse George Daniel<\/a> of The 1975<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Although titled \u201cRock Music,\u201d the track feels like it transcends genres. And that\u2019s because it does\u2013as Charli elaborates her thought process on the entire album in her Rolling Stone interview, she does not think of genre in a \u201cbinary way.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The rest of Music, Fashion, Film is equally as experimental, but lends itself to more emotional depth. <\/a>\u201cSS26<\/a>\u201d\u2014another single from the album\u2014comments on the inauthenticity of art in a doomsday\u2013like tone. Charli\u2019s pre\u2013chorus is brimming with references to past experiences being utilized as a way to commodify her art. \u201cThink my politics could work as a press strategy \/ And my heritage could give me quite the USP,\u201d she sings over the hum of the guitar.<\/p>\n

The music video for <\/a>\u201cSS26<\/a>\u201d directed by Torso<\/a>, speaks to the fashion part of Music, Fashion, Film\u2014taking the viewer behind the scenes of a fashion show. \u201cSS26\u201d is not short on representing the fashion industry<\/a>, with appearances from Creative Director of Yves Saint Laurent Anthony Vaccarello<\/a> to famed editor Carine Roitfeld<\/a>. \u00a0Among the disarray of the show, her lyric about \u201cwalking on a runway that goes straight to Hell\u201d is taken literally, as at the end of the runway models fall endlessly into a bottomless hole.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Throughout the album, the act of pretending and the pressure that accompanies it is woven in lyrics. \u201cCard Declined\u201d <\/a>is the most prominent example, done through the lens of materialism. In it she sings in monotone about buying a \u201cpersonality\u201d over slowed guitar in a cycle of emptiness. The track is closely tied to how material things can change you, and though it can \u201cunlock a new side of your personality,\u201d it can feel \u201cvery, very fake,\u201d Charli said while on the TapeNotes Podcast.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cCard Declined\u201d is dark yet complex, as collaborator Finn Keane says on the podcast when the chorus comes back, it\u2019s higher and takes on \u201ca more sort of hopeful\u201d tone. Charli adds on to this, saying that it\u2019s like \u201cput[ting] the jacket on and becom[ing] who you\u2019re supposed to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMagic Metal Montana\u201d <\/a>is a clear standout, bringing a unique joy to the album as a tribute to Charli\u2019s friendship with longtime collaborator A.G. Cook. It keeps a balance between vulnerable and playful, from its indie rock instrumentals and overlaying lively synth on top. The song feels bright in comparison to the rest of the album as she speaks to what their friendship means to her. \u201cYou\u2019re my best friend, but we don\u2019t talk \/ We make music, we talk that way.\u201d Charli sings as she shares her admiration of their friendship. In this part, her tone shifts; there\u2019s a sense of gratitude that at first feels out of place on an album with so much anxiousness. But then the next track plays.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo One Lasts Forever\u201d<\/a>\u2014by far the longest song on the album\u2014acts as the catharsis for the angst of previous tracks. The last track also features film director David Cronenberg<\/a>, who Charli named one of her dream collaborators on a film in her interview with Martoccio, citing his movie Maps to the Stars<\/a> as one of her favorites.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As Charli sings about impermanence, Cronenberg comes in the second half of the song through a recording of a conversation between him and her. Cronenberg\u2019s dialogue begins as he details a near\u2013death experience where he collapsed on a sidewalk. \u201cAs I was lying there on the sidewalk \/ I did not think about art at all \/ I thought about people, I thought about life,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Charli and her collaborators loop a line of conversation that encapsulates the focus on mortality, with Cronenberg saying \u201cThey are dead, they are gone \/ No one lasts forever.\u201d As the lines overlap again and again, it\u2019s as if it\u2019s purging all of the unease from previous tracks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNo One Lasts Forever\u201d solidifies the feeling of this album: sobering up to the fleeting reality of life.<\/p>\n

Music, Fashion, Film is in some ways antithetical to Brat. It progresses and grows like a line of thought: from worries about art and putting on a front to the realization of how short life is and the role that art plays in comparison to the people and life you\u2019ve built. In this way, Charli asks the listener to reflect on what matters most: the present or the legacy that you\u2019ll never see?<\/p>\n