It’s no secret that Charli xcx is a cinephile, so it wasn’t a shock when the avant-garde pop star revealed that her latest album would feature iconic horror auteur David Cronenberg — especially considering its title is “Music, Fashion, Film.” But what is surprising is just how impactful his contribution is to the wider meaning of the record.
The 83-year-old “Crash” and “The Fly” director closes out the 11-track, 30-minute album with a spoken-word monologue on the second-half of final song “No One Lasts Forever.” Up until that point, Charli takes listeners on a ride through her biggest genre leap yet as distorted guitars and sparse production take the place of bright synths and autotune. It’s a far cry from the club-ready bangers of “Brat,” and in many ways a reaction to its massive success — there’s the tongue-in-cheek “Rock Music,” containing a declaration that the dancefloor is dead; the pounding “Camera,” in which she contemplates her burgeoning acting career; the vapid-but-in-an-ironic-way “Wink Wink,” where she insists “people can change.”
But it’s not just Charli’s sound that has taken a heavier turn. Between seemingly surface-level lyrics about going shopping and wishing she was a pop star in 2007, Charli attempts to answer hard questions about an artist’s purpose. Track six, “I’m Afraid,” gives a taste of this as she laments the pitfalls of public life: “All this pain makes me believe/ I’m a better artist now/ An excuse I tell myself to act selfishly.” Throughout the record, Charli is really contemplating her role as an artist and the motivations behind making art — and whether it even matters, because the world is probably ending and we’re all going to die anyway.
