“You don’t get me, you don’t get me, you don’t get me, no you don’t”. So goes the pre-chorus in “Wink Wink”, the eighth track and third single from Charli XCX’s new album, Music, Fashion, Film. In a song with layers upon layers of irony and sarcasm – in which Charli simultaneously renounces, ridicules and propagates her bad girl persona – the line stands out as sincere. In this teen-emo refrain, both very Brat in its defiance and very un-Brat in its grainy delivery, we hear the clear-cut truth.
Because the fact that we don’t get her is the one consistent thing we’ve learned about Charli XCX. She was on the fringes of mainstream pop for a decade before her 2024 dance-pop album Brat sent the world round the twist and made her the most talked-about artist of the year. Though Instagram was flooded with people having “brat summers”, in their strappy tops and sunglasses with their cigarettes and bevs, the album’s reception was further proof that Charli was still five steps ahead: far from an aesthetic ode to partying, Brat was about the deeper feelings underneath those urges. Similarly, in the years leading up to it, Charli was pushing pop forward, a little too cutting edge to connect with people. She was so far ahead she got left behind.
