{"id":939558,"date":"2026-10-20T03:10:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T03:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/939558\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T03:10:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T03:10:11","slug":"charli-xcx-brings-music-fashion-film-to-the-kia-forum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/939558\/","title":{"rendered":"Charli XCX brings ‘Music, Fashion, Film’ to the Kia Forum"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What\u2019s the opposite of a victory lap?<\/p>\n

One answer arrived this year in the form of \u201cMusic, Fashion, Film,\u201d Charli XCX\u2019s bracing follow-up to 2024\u2019s Grammy-winning \u201cBrat<\/a>.\u201d An emotionally complicated dance-pop album about the relationship between power and vulnerability, \u201cBrat\u201d struck a nerve in a weird cultural moment and finally brought Charli the kind of stardom she\u2019d been openly seeking for ages. In the LP\u2019s immediate aftermath, the English musician hungrily scooped up the spoils of her success \u2014 playing Coachella\u2019s main stage, starring in a highbrow mockumentary, soundtracking Hollywood\u2019s latest take on \u201cWuthering Heights.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet \u201cMusic, Fashion, Film\u201d wonders what it all meant. It\u2019s a digitally enhanced rock record \u2014 probably 2026\u2019s best thing-with-guitar \u2014 that cycles through thoughts on ambition and trend-chasing before landing with a moving sense of serenity on the idea that everybody dies and takes their accomplishments with them.<\/p>\n

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\u201cNo One Lasts Forever\u201d is the album\u2019s final track, and Sunday night that was also Charli\u2019s closer at Inglewood\u2019s Kia Forum, where she headlined the second of two shows over the weekend.<\/p>\n

Structurally, the concert bookended songs from \u201cBrat\u201d (for which she was accompanied by prerecorded tracks) with stuff from \u201cMusic, Fashion, Film\u201d (for which a scuzzy live band backed her up). There were stray oldies too, including \u201cConstant Repeat,\u201d which she introduced as one of the first songs she wrote about her husband, George Daniel \u2014 \u201ceven though it\u2019s not exactly truthful,\u201d she added \u2014 and the landmark hyperpop cut \u201cVroom Vroom.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also did \u201cHouse,\u201d a spooky goth-folk song from \u201cWuthering Heights\u201d that had her writhing on the stage in the white-hot heat of a single spotlight \u2014 a sex kitten turned scream queen (or perhaps vice versa). And she brought out Ad\u00e9la<\/a>, the Slovakian singer famously booted from the reality show that created Katseye, to do her viral hit \u201cNicole Kidman,\u201d which is just one of a handful of rough-edged pop hits this year that demonstrate \u201cBrat\u2019s\u201d lasting influence.<\/p>\n

Indeed, what was illuminating about the middle of the show \u2014 basically a half-hour-long club night with strobes cranked happily to here\u2019s-the-seizure-you-ordered \u2014 was seeing how very un-tired Charli\u2019s fans are of being pulverized by songs like \u201cClub Classics,\u201d for which she donned her Superman\u2019s-cape sunglasses, and \u201cGuess,\u201d during which pairs of underwear rained down on the audience in a nod to the music video for the song\u2019s remix with Billie Eilish.<\/p>\n

Charli had opened with the new album\u2019s \u201cRock Music,\u201d in which she declares that \u201cthe dance floor is dead\u201d; here, her sarcasm fooled precisely nobody.<\/p>\n

My favorite part was the home stretch of tunes from \u201cMusic, Fashion, Film\u201d: \u201cCamera,\u201d a startlingly frank confession of her movie-star aspirations; \u201cMagic Metal Montana,\u201d a deeply tender ode to her friend and collaborator A.G. Cook; \u201cSS26,\u201d a jittery electro-punk jam about \u201cwalking on a runway that goes straight to hell.\u201d<\/p>\n

I love the strange emotion in these songs \u2014 the feeling that you might as well say what you want because the only thing more embarrassing than taking a risk is not taking one.<\/p>\n

At some point, Charli lit up a cigarette and waved it around like someone who\u2019d discovered a critical truth. What were they gonna do \u2014 make her end the concert early?<\/p>\n

Define early; better yet, define late.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What\u2019s the opposite of a victory lap? One answer arrived this year in the form of \u201cMusic, Fashion,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":939559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[6871,10052,179884,49,48,9083,4270,75,1187,1554,321941,321942,284729,341,1317,6875,65750,2552],"class_list":["post-939558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-album","tag-billie-eilish","tag-brat","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-charli-xcx","tag-concert","tag-entertainment","tag-fashion","tag-film","tag-final-track","tag-kia-forum","tag-main-stage","tag-music","tag-show","tag-song","tag-wuthering-heights","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=939558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/939559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=939558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=939558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=939558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}