When Madonna recently posted on Instagram: “If your dance floor feels dead/ Maybe you’re playing the wrong music,” it set fan forums buzzing with speculation.
Some were immediately convinced: The singer – who has just released a follow-up to her hugely hyped album “Confessions on a Dance Floor” – was taking a swipe at fellow pop star Charli XCX, who had earlier declared the death of the dance floor in a new song.
But whether Madonna was really alluding to the British singer or not, rumours like these probably suit Charli XCX just fine. There are few pop stars who master the game of self-presentation – straddling internet hype, irony and artistic ambition – quite like this 33-year-old.
A party girl amid glamour girls
With her 2024 album “Brat,” Charli XCX shaped pop and internet culture for an entire summer. At the same time, her cool demeanour sometimes makes her seem like an anti-pop star, far removed from the high-gloss glamour of a Taylor Swift.
She stages herself as an excessive party girl, but constantly comments on that image at a meta level – and has even starred in a film about it.
Now the singer is releasing her new record, “Music, Fashion, Film.” Fittingly, the album cover brings together musician John Cale, designer Marc Jacobs and directing legend Martin Scorsese – likely a nod to her interests beyond pop music. But more on that later.
Charli XCX first made her name in the early 2010s with hits such as “Break the Rules” and “Boom Clap,” and has more recently become known for a mix of hyperpop and danceable electro. The songs released so far from the new album sound rockier and louder, with raw guitar sounds.
The human embodiment of the internet
That shift is not entirely surprising and fits a pattern: The singer habitually reinvents her sound, keeping the viral conversation about herself alive in the process. Commentators have described her as the human embodiment of internet culture – someone who has mastered the art of translating the web into real life.
How apt that description is becomes clear when you look at the frenzy surrounding the “Brat” album. A brief recap: the English musician, who is married to The 1975 drummer George Daniel, sparked a cultural trend with the title of her sixth studio album.
The idea behind it: Do what you want, regardless of what others think – a kind of counter-trend to the overly polished “clean girl” aesthetic. In a BBC interview, she said all you really need to be “brat” is a top without a bra, a lighter and a pack of cigarettes.
The term was named word of the year by Collins Dictionary in Britain. The acid-green cover became a template for memes and fashion. Even the campaign team of then-US presidential candidate Kamala Harris rode the viral wave.
Charli XCX – whose full name is Charlotte Emma Aitchison – could, of course, simply have let the “Brat” summer run and run, or carried its spirit into her new album. Instead, she heralded the end of the hype herself. In the self-deprecating satire “The Moment” – in which she plays an exaggerated version of herself, a pop star in existential crisis – she declared “Brat” officially over this year.
She told Rolling Stone magazine that making the same thing twice held no creative satisfaction for her. “All of my albums work in opposites,” she said. They stand in contradiction to one another – and that, she said, is precisely what connects them.
So, a rock album then? Although the first single is called “Rock Music,” she told Rolling Stone she had never claimed to be making a rock album, adding that she finds it very old-fashioned to pin music down to genres.
‘I think the dance floor is dead’
That song – which may well have been the inspiration for Madonna’s Instagram post – has an undeniably rockier sound, with drums and distorted guitars. The music video plays with rock’n’roll clichés: Charli XCX throws a television out of a window and stands around mounds of cigarette butts.
In it, she also conjures the end of the dance floor: “I think the dance floor is dead/ So now we’re making rock music.”
She told Rolling Stone that the much-discussed lyric is very much about her relationship with “Brat” and her personal experience of that album, but was not intended as a criticism of dance music.
The album title “Music, Fashion, Film” reads like a self-portrait and describes rather accurately what makes the artist compelling beyond her music. She is not only a skilled songwriter – having written songs for Camila Cabello and Selena Gomez, among others, and contributed to the soundtrack of the film “Wuthering Heights” – but also a passionate cinephile.
She is a fan of German filmmaker Werner Herzog and an active user of the film-rating platform Letterboxd. Fashion is another arena in which she makes her voice heard. Her distinctive, edgy outfits have become a style reference for many.
On that note: The rumours of a feud between the pop star and Madonna were quickly put to rest. At a show during Paris Fashion Week, the two sat side by side – and embraced warmly.
With her 2024 album “Brat,” Charli XCX shaped pop and internet culture for an entire summer. At the same time, her cool demeanour sometimes makes her seem like an anti-pop star, far removed from the high-gloss glamour of a Taylor Swift. Christoph Soeder/dpa