Charli xcx has unleashed the grungy track Rock Music alongside a music video filmed as the song was made.
The Apple singer recruited her collaborators A.G. Cook, Finn Keane, and her The 1975 drummer husband George Daniel to be her band in the clip which pays homage to the tropes of rock ‘n’ roll, including Charli throwing a TV out of hotel window and smoking a mountain of cigarettes.
The promo is helmed by the same creative force behind her Brat mockumentary, The Moment, Aidan Zamiri.
Penning on her Instagram account @b.sides, she wrote: “started the idea for this music video with aidan when we were in paris. aidan was filming me in the studio with finn and alex. it was fun to be immediately reactive and come up with the idea for the video as the song was still being made. the song ideas informed the video and the video ideas informed the song. full circle kinda thing. thanks to everyone who got together in staten island to make this happen. it was a really special day xx (sic).”
The Von Dutch hitmaker had recently declared the dance floor is “dead” – a line she repeats in the song – and suggested she was shifting to rock music. This was taken as a sign that her follow-up to the cultural phenomenon that was 2024’s Brat would be a rock album – but she later clarified it’s not.
Clarifying that she isn’t making a rock album, she captioned a black-and-white clip from her Paris sessions: “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 (sic).”
Charli said she would be “really sad” if she’d made another album in the same vein as Brat.
Discussing how she knew she wanted “to go to Paris” to work on her eighth LP, she told Britain’s Vogue magazine: “We knew it would be this very hectic, rich time and we like creating in that kind of atmosphere.
“I think the dance floor is dead, so now we’re making rock music…
“Being out in the world at night, experiencing things as I’m writing, is really helpful to my process.
“If I’d made another album that felt more dance-leaning, it would have felt really hard, really sad.
“What’s interesting for me is to bend the possibilities of what my perspective on [rock music] could be.”
The 33-year-old singer finds it exciting to challenge herself by pushing the boundaries of her sound.
She said: “I’ve been making music since I was 14. It’s nearly 20 years. I feel very spoiled saying this, but there is not much that can thrill me within music any more.
“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.
“I’d always rather have style than be vague. Which is the biggest crime, in my opinion.”