Charli XCX has officially announced her seventh studio album, Music, Fashion, Film, set for release on July 24, 2026.
After spending the last two years dominating dancefloors and reshaping pop culture with Brat, Charli appears ready to tear the whole thing down and start again.
The announcement arrives alongside one of the year’s most talked-about album covers. Shot by Charli’s longtime collaborator Aidan Zamiri, the black-and-white photograph brings together three towering cultural figures, each representing one part of the album’s title: legendary Velvet Underground co-founder John Cale for music, fashion designer Marc Jacobs for fashion, and acclaimed filmmaker Martin Scorsese for film.
Rather than placing them in a glamorous setting, the trio appear gathered in what looks like an ordinary room, creating a deliberately understated image that has already sparked plenty of discussion online.
The album itself looks set to be equally divisive.
Clocking in at just 11 tracks and 30 minutes, Music, Fashion, Film marks a significant departure from the club-focused hyperpop that propelled Brat into cultural phenomenon territory. Instead, Charli has been teasing a noisier, guitar-driven direction through recent singles ‘Rock Music’ and ‘SS26’.
On ‘Rock Music’, she delivers one of her boldest statements yet, declaring: “I think the dancefloor is dead.”
Meanwhile, the album title itself comes from a lyric in ‘SS26’, a track that takes aim at fashion culture through an apocalyptic lens.
“Yeah we’re walking on a runway that goes straight to hell / Nothing’s gonna save us, not music, fashion, or film,” she sings.
Speaking directly to fans on TikTok, Charli acknowledged the record’s sharp stylistic turn and made it clear she isn’t expecting universal approval.
“I made an album and it’s really different from the last one,” she said. “I love it, and you might not. And that’s cool… because that’s just what it is to have personal preferences.”
It’s a typically Charli response. Rather than chasing another Brat-sized moment, Music, Fashion, Film appears determined to challenge expectations, even if that means leaving part of her audience behind.
With John Cale already appearing alongside Charli earlier this year on the soundtrack for Wuthering Heights, and the singer increasingly embracing fashion and film as extensions of her creative world, the album feels less like a pivot and more like the culmination of several parallel obsessions colliding at once.
Whether fans follow her into this new era remains to be seen, but Charli seems perfectly comfortable with that uncertainty.
