Charli XCX Returns With Crunchy New Single “Rock Music” and a Zamiri-Directed Video

Charli XCX has swapped the nightclub glow for snarling guitars on her new single “Rock Music,” released with a video by Aidan Zamiri. It is a sharper, louder pivot but still unmistakably Charli: pop instincts braided through distorted riffs and a maximalist sense of melody. The clip arrives just as she teased a more analog, guitar-forward direction for her next record.

There is a wink of mischief in the visuals — and a literal one in her choice to kick her high heels into the back of a Fender — but the move feels genuine rather than retro affectation. Zamiri, who also directed the video for her “Guess” remix with Billie Eilish, leans into kinetic, slightly off-kilter staging that matches the songs thrust.

A new album on the horizon

Charli made the shift official in a recent British Vogue cover story, telling readers shes “making rock music” and that the forthcoming album will foreground guitars and dial back Auto-Tune. “We were doing our version of analogue, which is so silly and funny,” she said, and shes enlisted familiar collaborators from Brats sessions: producers A.G. Cook and Finn Keane, formerly known as Easyfun, reportedly stood in for those recording sessions in Paris.

The timing makes sense. After the glitter and tactical chaos of 2024s Brat, which landed at No. 7 on The 100 Best Albums of the 2020s So Far, Charli seems intent on reshaping her palette without abandoning the pop architecture that got her here. “Rock Music” keeps hooks at the center while testing what her maximal pop identity can accommodate when amplified through guitar noise.

Elsewhere this year Charli released a companion album for Emerald Fennells film adaptation of Wuthering Heights, a project that included contributions from John Cale and Sky Ferreira, “the latter of whom claimed all was not as it seemed.” Shes also been oscillating between studio and set: her acting credits now include Daniel Goldhabers Faces of Death remake, Gregg Arakis forthcoming I Want Your Sex, and her own mockumentary The Moment, a sustained reminder that Charli operates at the intersection of pop and performance art.

“Rock Music” is less a repudiation of her electronic past than a restatement: Charli is trading one set of textures for another while keeping the structural DNA intact. Fans looking for the same uncompromising, attention-demanding artist will find it here, albeit louder and with more strings attached.

Watch the video below and decide for yourself whether the dance floor is truly dead or just moving its feet to a new kind of beat.