Image Credit: Charli XCX, Aidan Zamiri

The young girl from Essex has climbed mountains to sit among the most iconic UK pop girls of the century, as BRAT remains in the UK Top 100 nearly two years on. The album has received countless accolades: it was shortlisted for the coveted Mercury Prize, received nine nominations at the 67th Grammy Awards (winning two), and took home Mastercard Album of the Year at the BRIT Awards 2025.

Since the album’s release in 2024, online buzz has followed Charli XCX, with the weight of topping the unprecedented success of BRAT. So, not too much pressure!

Fans speculated over her next artistic venture as her career unexpectedly pivoted to the silver screen, with cameos in Overcompensating, starring in her own film The Moment (2026), and providing a full soundtrack album for Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights (2025). Charli is also expected to star alongside Jessica Alba in Dakota Johnson’s directorial debut, A Tree is Blue.

With such a jam-packed schedule, no one expected the star to announce last month that new music was in the works. To add to the surprise, just six days ago, Charli confessed that she and her team had made “rock music”, and the internet went wild. Comments flooded in with countless guesses as to what shape this new era would take, with one Instagram user suggesting: “‘rock music’ is the name of the album and it’s all electropop songs about stones and minerals.”

Well… they didn’t completely miss the mark.

The song ‘Rock Music’ was released just hours ago, accompanied by a music video directed by Aidan Zamiri, and has already garnered nearly 200,000 views on YouTube. There’s no doubt those figures will skyrocket as the UK wakes up and finds its social feeds invaded by Charli’s latest iconic reinvention.

However, how much of a “reinvention” is this?

It seems fans were hoodwinked into believing there would be a major genre shift from the singer, known for her electropop and club-ready sound. In reality, ‘Rock Music’ shows off the familiar auto-tuned vocals and experimental pop beats, but refreshingly pairs them with some serious guitar crunch. The music video showcases Charli’s vision of rock-star life, featuring clips of her walking the streets of NYC in a lacy bra, surrounded by stacks of burnt cigarettes, and sporting a fashionable neck brace as she stylishly rides in a limousine.

The burning questions remain. Will Charli XCX’s eighth studio album really be a rock album? Or is the star redefining what it means to be a rock star? And will it live up to the overwhelming legacy of BRAT?