Charli XCX was supposed to be taking a break.<\/p>\n
Her sixth album, Brat, was the sort of record you could genuinely call era-defining, without being accused of overstating its significance. <\/p>\n
Experimental but accessible songs like Guess, Apple and 360 propelled the star to new heights of fame. <\/p>\n
Her album was co-opted into Kamala Harris’s 2024 presidential campaign, and Collins English Dictionary updated its definition of Brat<\/a>, to acknowledge its use as an adjective characterising the music’s “confident, independent, and hedonistic attitude”. <\/p>\n After a punishing year-long tour, the singer accepted a few acting roles, wrote the soundtrack to Emerald Fennel’s adaptation of Wuthering Heights and married her longterm partner George Daniel.<\/p>\n But instead of settling down, she found herself back in the studio.<\/p>\n “Out of the blue, inspiration struck me,” she says. “I suddenly felt like I had something to say, so I ran with it.”<\/p>\n In a matter of weeks, she dashed off 11 short, guitar-based songs that tried to make sense of her whirlwind two years.<\/p>\n The resulting album, titled Music, Fashion, Film, is smart, self-referential, funny, antagonistic and crammed full of moments to stimulate your inner earworm.<\/p>\n Significantly, deliberately, it’s not Brat 2.0. <\/p>\n “If I’d made another album that felt more dance-leaning, it would have felt really hard, really sad,” she told Vogue in the first interview for the album, external<\/a>.<\/p>\n