Charli XCX Offers a Grungy Taste of Her Eighth Album With ‘Rock Music’

THE RUNDOWN

• Charli XCX released a brand new single, “Rock Music,” which gives fans the first true look at her eighth album.
• The pop star shared a music video along with the single on May 8.
• She revealed that her next album will explore her relationship with creating art.

Charli XCX has officially entered her next era. Hours after announcing the release of new material—just months after dropping her Wuthering Heights soundtrack album—the “Von Dutch” singer returned on May 8 with a brand new single titled “Rock Music.”

The song does lean into a grungier sound with electric guitars and head-banging beats, and Charli seems to make a pivot from Brat in the chorus: “I think the dance floor is dead / So now we’re making ro-oh-oh-oh-ck music.”

But the track still carries Charli’s pop sensibilities, with electronic influences (it was produced by A.G. Cook, after all) and lyrics oozing with attitude. The first verse begins: “Me and my friends, we go out / We take pictures and make stuff together / And sometimes we cry / We kiss each other, real incestuous vibes / (I knew you’d like that).” Even the glitch as she sings the words “rock music” feels dance-inspired, which could be an intentional wink.

The black-and-white video (directed by Aidan Zamiri, the filmmaker behind The Moment) sees the pop star in a hotel room with her husband, George Daniel, stripping in the street, and smoking amid literal mountains of cigarettes.

“Rock Music” arrived two weeks after the lyrics were teased in Charli’s April 16 interview with British Vogue: “I think the dance floor is dead…so now we’re making rock music.” She explained, “For me, it’s fun to flip the form. We know there’s gonna be people who are bothered by it, but that’s fine.”

The quote led to heated discourse online from some fans and artists within the music industry—in response, Charli made a series of tweets that explained her goal wasn’t to make a true rock album.

“A video of me making a song called rock music that is not actually rock music which is funny because I never said I was making a rock album. love you xx,” she captioned a tweet of her along with her friends and producer A.G. Cook working on music.

She followed up the tweet with another one that read, “woke up and had an idea for a song that made me lol. told A. G. and finn and they thought it was cute too. so we made ‘rock music.’”

As for what fans can expect from her upcoming eighth album, Charli told British Vogue that the forthcoming project will comment “on how I interact with the joint main love of my life outside of George,” which is art, “and what would happen if that was taken from me. How I would have no purpose, and how for good or bad, art does provide me with purpose in my life.”

On May 14, Charli reflected on the reaction to “Rock Music” on Instagram. She wrote, “Seeing all the different reactions to my song rock music has been really interesting. My friends and I have been discussing how in ways it reminds us of the initial discourse around pc music, how the label was deemed as almost critiquing or looking down on pop music or something, and there was an element of that with vroom vroom too when that ep came out.”

“It’s all kind of fascinating,” she added. “I love talking about music and art w[ith] my friends, so I’m happy people are throwing out thoughts. I’m not gonna explain where I was coming from with ‘Rock Music,’ but all I know is that things can be funny, earnest, sincere, and joyful all at the same time, and that’s what I feel about a lot of the things I make.”

Read the lyrics to “Rock Music” in full below, courtesy of Genius.

[Verse 1]Me and my friends, we go outWe take pictures and make stuff togetherAnd sometimes we cryWe kiss each other, real incestuous vibes(I knew you’d like that)Yeah, we’re so inspiredBasically all the timeYeah, we’re on to the next[Chorus]I think the dance floor is deadSo now we're making ro-oh-oh-oh-ck music[Verse 2]WowI'm really banging my headI’m really hurting my neckThe nervе damage is realBut it's the only way to feel somеthing hurt yourselfYeah, maybe jump off the stageI hope they catch you todayBut if they don’t, it’s okay[Chorus]I think the dance floor is dead (It's so dead)So now we're making ro-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-ck music[Outro]I’m really banging my headI'm really banging my headI'm really banging my head

And now we're making ro-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-ck—