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

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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.

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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 Charli’s April 16 interview with British Vogue, in which she said, “I think the dance floor is dead…so now we’re making rock music.” She added, “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.”

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

[Verse 1]
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)
Yeah, we’re so inspired
Basically all the time
Yeah, we’re on to the next

[Chorus]
I think the dance floor is dead
So now we’re making ro-oh-oh-oh-ck music

[Verse 2]
Wow
I’m really banging my head
I’m really hurting my neck
The nervе damage is real
But it’s the only way to feel somеthing hurt yourself
Yeah, maybe jump off the stage
I hope they catch you today
But 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 head
I’m really banging my head
I’m really banging my head
And now we’re making ro-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-ck—