Charli XCX’s Music, Fashion, Film: Decoding the Album & Easter Eggs

Music, Fashion, Film does just that as it explores her passions in those three categories. In fact, the cover art features people Charli admires from each group: The Velvet Underground rocker John Cale for music, designer Marc Jacobs for fashion and Martin Scorsese for film.

“Everybody sort of has their favorite people—their music, fashion, film,” the 33-year-old recently shared with Scott Lipps on SPIN Magazine’s Lipps Service, “and I think that’s kind of the fun of the title in a way as well.”

When it comes to the album’s sound, she reiterated it’s “very different” from Wuthering Heights and Brat and that some people may find these contrasts “quite jarring and quite stark.”

“I think the scrappy nature of it is sort of reflective of the kind of in-the-moment thought process around making things, because that is really a lot of what the record is about,” Charli explained. “It’s about thinking about how lucky I feel to be able to what I do, how creating things makes me feel so happy and alive and fulfilled, but also how it’s sort of tortuous sometimes. We wanted the sound of the record to reflect the in-process-ness of the topic.”

This departure is made clear right away with the first track “Rock Music,” in which she belts out, “I think the dance floor is dead. So now we’re singing rock music.” While she clarified on Instagram the song “is not actually rock music” and she “never said I was making a rock album,” that didn’t stop the wave of attention around the lyric. Even Madonna wrote in a post, “If your Dance floor feels dead. Maybe you’re playing the wrong music.”

However, Charli has noted she doesn’t actually think the dance floor is dead. Brat was, after all, named Best Dance/Electronic Album in 2025, and her husband does run a dance music label (George even makes a cameo in the music video and Charli re-wears her wedding dress in it).

“That lyric from that song is about my relationship with Brat,” she recently clarified on Nicky Reardon’s Nicky at Night. “I’ve made electronic-leaning music. That shaped who I am. It’s kind of about my pivot from that as an artist who doesn’t want to continue to do the same thing over, and over and over again.”

Next up is “SS26″—a fitting name considering Charli recorded the album during Paris Fashion Week. And while she sings, “Spring, Summer ’26 / When the world is gonna end, no hope for any of it / Yeah, we’re walkin’ on a runway that goes straight to hell,” the British artist said the song is about persona rather than the state of the world.

“If you’re on the internet, there is this sort of level of persona,” Charli continued, “this level of feeling like you need to be on the right side of every single conversation and not get things wrong and apologize for things, how big or small, that you’ve done to ultimately lead you towards some kind of moral sanctuary that will still actually not ever be enough.”

After that, comes “Card Declined.” Calling the track’s perspective “flamboyant and braggy,” Charli told British Vogue in a May cover story, “It crosses over into how you can dress up who you are and become the ideal fantasy that you want to be in that moment. Everybody is performing, in a way.”

Then, it’s on to “Camera,” which explores Charli’s feelings about starting acting.

“It’s a very impulsive state to be in,” she added. “That can be terrifying but it can also unlock this instinct in you, and it’s scary but it’s kind of nice, like, f–k it. And maybe I’ll fall on my face and humiliate myself but maybe I’ll do something really powerful, and if you don’t try, you never know.”

Meanwhile, “2007”—a year when Charli’s music career was just beginning—is “about how everybody can have their own moment of fabulousness all through their phone in 15 seconds,” she continued. “It’s sort of the ultimate screen test.”

Going down the list, “I’m Afraid” is next followed by “Yeah” and “Wink Wink.”

“‘Wink Wink,’ I suppose in a way, is another song about persona,” Charli added on Nicky at Night, “in that it’s kind of about playing into these things that people sort of think that you are and then kind of being like, ‘But I’m not that anymore.'”

As she put it, “There are these boxes that people want to put you in and this is me sort of dancing around in that box.”

According to a fan account, Charli’s stylist Chris Horan noted on Instagram Stories that they gave nods to her former chapters in the music video by featuring outfits she wore in past eras—including Brat, “Pop 2” and “Party 4 U”—on a clothesline in the background.

Near the end of the album is “Persona” and “Magic Metal Montana.” The latter is an ode to her longtime collaborator A.G. Cook, with Charli opening the song with the lyric, “Call you A.G. in my phonebook.”

Finally, the album ends with “No One Lasts Forever featuring David Cronenberg,” the Canadian director who closes out the song by reflecting on artists and their work and then repeating, “They are dead. They are gone. No one lasts forever.”

For Charli, as she told British Vogue, the track made her feel like everything is “profound and important” but still fleeting.

“The song will end and my time doing what I’m doing will end,” she shared. “And so I think, because everything is so finite, all I can do is just be true to myself.”

In honor of this new beginning with Music, Fashion, Film’s release, look back at Charli’s previous chapters.