Charli XCX Drops ‘‘Rock Music’’ Single and Aidan Zamiri-Directed Video

Charli XCX has officially kicked off what she’s calling a new “rock” era with the single “Rock Music” and a chaotic video from longtime collaborator Aidan Zamiri. It lands after a whirlwind stretch for Charli: the afterlife of 2024’s Brat, a mockumentary titled The Moment, acting turns, and soundtrack work on films she didn’t even appear in, including Wuthering Heights and Mother Mary.

Not long ago she stirred headlines by saying, “I think the dancefloor is dead, so now were making rock music,” a line she offered up in an interview as both provocation and manifesto. She later dialed that back in a caption on social media teaser: “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.”

“Rock Music” itself is a push and a prank at once. Guitars and drums are thrust to the fore, but Charli treats them like club instruments — more propulsion than tradition — and the production is gloriously messy: voice glitches, a muddy mix, and a sense that the song would rather shove you into the pit than cradle your nostalgia. Theres an odd, infectious kinship to Daft Punks “Digital Love” in the way the track turns rock energy into something danceable and slightly synthetic.

“The nerve damage is real, but it’s the only way to feel something/ Hurt yourself,”

That lyric lands like a thesis statement: deadpan delivery, near-emotionless vocal affect, but a howl against numbness and overstimulation. Its a neat paradox — Charli proclaiming “Rock Music” is rock music and then complicating what that even means. The song maps out familiar nightlife coordinates: sex, drugs, reckless motion, and the fizzy chemistry of going out with friends until limbs stop cooperating.

The video, directed by Zamiri (who also co-directed The Moment), matches the songs gleeful disarray. Its fucking sick, and Charli is very much in her element: a room overflowing with cigarette butts, smoke that bleeds into grimy city streets, ripped tights and broken guitars, televisions sent tumbling out of windows. A wink toward high art arrives in a shot where her finger reaching for a fan mirrors Michelangelos “Creation Of Adam” in the Sistine Chapel, a small theatrical flourish amid the wreckage.

Her husband, The 1975s George Daniel, turns up behind the kit, playing drums as part of a combo with Finn Keane and A.G. Cook. At one point Charli perches on the kick drum and it explodes  a literal boom for a literal pop-rock moment. Theres a lot to take in visually and sonically, and the whole thing feels like an intentional collision of eras and energies rather than a straight genre pivot.

For fans who have followed Charli through hyperpop experiments, DIY club bangers, and cinematic detours, “Rock Music” reads like another thrilling swerve: equal parts provocation and pleasure, the kind of song that sends a crowd into a small, glorious spin.