Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min<\/p>\n
Charli XCX spent a over a decade in the electro pop trenches before suddenly blowing up big time in the Brat summer of 2024. <\/p>\n
So it\u2019s not a surprise that the British singer who has said that \u201call of my albums work in opposites\u201d and \u201crepel against each other\u201d would react to long-time-in-coming viral success with a stylistic about-face and pause for self-refection. <\/p>\n
The result is Music, Fashion, Film, her new album which gives its name to the tour that launched at Xfinity Mobile Arena in South Philadelphia<\/a> on Friday with a hyper-kinetic performance in front of a deliriously excitable opening-night crowd. <\/p>\n On its surface, the Music, Fashion, Film album appears to be a turn away from the Dionysian \u201cClub Classics\u201d culture of its predecessor into something more serious-minded and self consciously mature.<\/p>\n The image on the album cover<\/a> \u2014 and on the $50 T-shirts selling on the concourse \u2014 is not of the trendsetting pop star, 34, but a group shot of three titans in their fields \u2014 Velvet Underground co-founder John Cale, fashion designer Marc Jacobs, and movie director Martin Scorsese. <\/p>\n Instead of the neon green that lit up Brat summer, the cover shot \u2014 and all Music, Fashion, Film imagery \u2014 is in black and white. <\/p>\n The album\u2019s lead track, \u201cRock Music,\u201d which she opened with Friday, Charli appears to be putting club culture in her rear view. <\/p>\n \u201cMe and my friends,\u201d she sings. \u201cYeah, we\u2019re on to the next. I think the dance floor is dead \/ So now we\u2019re making \u2026 Rock Music.\u201d<\/p>\n And truth be told, she is \u2014 some of the time. <\/p>\n For most of the first and last thirds of the 100-minute lightning-fast show \u2014 which included 29 songs, with the briefest of breaks for exhortations like \u201cPhilly, this is the Music, Fashion, Film tour, are you [expletive] with me!\u201d \u2014 she was accompanied by a three-piece band that included Morrisville, Pa., native Chris Greatti <\/a>on guitar.<\/p>\n Music, Fashion, Film songs like \u201cWink, Wink,\u201d \u201cPersona,\u201d and \u201c2007\u201d kicked into gear with overdriven guitars and hyper-pop-processed production that upped the adrenaline level. <\/p>\n And Charli \u2014 whose given name is Aitchison and whose stage name derives from a teenage online screen moniker meaning \u201cKiss Charli Kiss \u201c \u2014 made the most of the rock aesthetic, striking poses that made her look like an Italian neo-realist film star<\/a> in the B&W image on the video screens. <\/p>\n But for all of their brash rock and roll presentation on a three-tiered stage topped by a facsimile of a smoke-emitting giant speaker \u2014 and no shortage of pyro going off throughout the show \u2014 the Music, Fashion, Film songs are actually introspective and soul searching.<\/p>\n Not in a navel gazing, overly earnest way though. Charli XCX couldn\u2019t bore you with self-pitying clich\u00e9s about the perils of pop stardom if she tried. <\/p>\n Instead, she\u2019s droll and sharply observant and self aware about a lack of fulfillment from fame. Along with Cale, whose recorded voice was heard on Friday from their collaboration on \u201cHouse,\u201d from the Wuthering Heights soundtrack released this year, Charli is a also a superfan of his Velvets bandmate Lou Reed. <\/p>\n And several Music Fashion, Film songs display a deadpan dark wit that show she has more in common with Reed than an appreciation for black leather. <\/p>\n Most amusing was \u201cCard Declined,\u201d a song about the failure of retail therapy to come through and transform your essential self when you need it most. \u201cLet\u2019s go shopping,\u201d she sang on Friday. \u201cI\u2019ll buy a handbag. I\u2019ll buy some shoes … a personality, a whole backstory \u2026 Card declined.\u201d <\/p>\n Equally astute and self aware were \u201cPersona,\u201d \u201cWink, Wink\u201d \u2014 in which she vowed \u201dI\u2019m not a bad girl anymore, I promise\u201d \u2014 and \u201cCamera,\u201d about being addicted to growing up in public, to a dangerous degree. <\/p>\n Charli played 13 songs from Music Fashion, Film, and included a few older cuts, such as \u201cParty 4 U,\u201d from 2020\u2019s How I\u2019m Feeling Now and the title song from her 2014 EP Vroom, Vroom. <\/p>\n And the surprise of the evening was \u201cStay Away,\u201d pulled from True Romance, the debut album that brought her to Philadelphia for her first-ever U.S. performance at a Making Time party at Voyeur in the Gayborhood in 2012.<\/a><\/p>\n In the lead up to Friday\u2019s show, Charli gave fans fashion tips on social media, saying the dress code is<\/a> \u201cwhatever you want but if you want to commit I\u2019d just get an old t-shirt and rip it to shreds and wear that.\u201d <\/p>\n Many women, men, girls and boys took heed, usually pairing the distressed garment with something black leathery, and most leaving Brat gear at home.<\/p>\n And before the show, Charli also teased the vibe<\/a> of the tour, which she said is \u201c50% party, 50% existential crisis tbh.\u201d <\/p>\n The existential theme was carried by the songs from the new album. Though to be honest, they were delivered with so much energy that the buzz in the room never let up. <\/p>\n But the unadulterated partying \u2014 and the shrieks of delight and singing along to every single lyric \u2014 really cut loose on the Brat songs that made up the meat in the middle of the show. With the band for the most part disappeared, the bass-heavy beats thumped, the general admission dance floor pulsated.<\/p>\n Like a boss, Charli prowled the catwalk \u2014 and writhed on the ground \u2014 followed around by a coterie of what I counted as 14 associates, that were more like fashion-model voguers than dancers. <\/p>\n It was difficult to tell how many people were onstage at any one time because flashing strobes seemed to go off every millisecond. The group of planning-ahead fans next to me were better prepared than I, having arrived with Charli-esque sunglasses to wear when necessary. <\/p>\n The show got back to existential business at the end. First, with \u201cSS26,\u201d a lovely pop song with a sobering point of view that cast doubt on art\u2019s ability to make a difference.<\/p>\n \u201cSpring, Summer, \u201926, when the world is gonna end, no hope for any of it,\u201d she sang. \u201cWe\u2019re walking on a runway that goes straight to hell, nothing\u2019s gonna save us, not music, fashion, or film.\u201d <\/p>\n That was followed by the closing, \u201cNo One Lasts Forever,\u201d which also closes the album. It\u2019s a song about seizing the day and embracing the here and now, \u2018\u2019cause nothing gonna last forever.\u201d <\/p>\n On Friday, Charli put that point across musically as an inviting pop rock song. But then, as on the album, she handed off the mic to the voice of Canadian director David Cronenberg, recorded in conversation with her.<\/p>\n As a trance-like beat throbbed behind him, and Charli and dancers posed motionless on the elevated stage, Cronenberg spoke about how art can live forever, but artists can\u2019t. <\/p>\n When everybody\u2019s time is up \u2014 including the pop star being celebrated in that very arena on Friday \u2014 Cronenberg\u2019s looped voice repeated 27 times, \u201cThey are dead, they are gone, no one lasts forever.\u201d<\/p>\n And what that translates to \u2014 he and Charli were arguing \u2014 is the artistic license to be inspired and create in the moments that we\u2019re here. That thought was boiled down to three words \u201cOblivion is Freedom,\u201d which were spelled out on the video screens, and also on a T-shirt sold at the merch table.<\/a><\/p>\n