Charli xcx’s seventh album, Music, Fashion, Film, is presented as a self-questioning follow-up to the cultural success of Brat rather than a victory lap. The review argues that Charli examines artistic ambition, celebrity’s depersonalising effects and the tension between her public persona and private self, using irony, sincerity and absurdity to unsettle expectations.

Although billed around a rock-oriented sound, the album is said to use “rock music” more as a performance or costume than a straightforward genre shift. Songs including “Rock Music”, “2007”, “Card Declined”, “SS26” and “No One Lasts Forever”, featuring David Cronenberg, reportedly fracture choruses and employ glitches, scratches and repeated phrases to reflect fame, fashion and existential uncertainty.