Music, Fashion, Film is good, even when it sucks Many times in music, artists have rejected predictability and obviousness that would keep them up in the charts, in exchange to creating art that would make them important in culture, give them critical acclaim, and recognition among their peers. But what if Charli rejected both the numbers and the critical acclaim? Music, Fashion, Film becomes Charli’s successful attempt at demonstrating you can make music for yourself, without needing permission or go through a thousand quality filters. The album excels at making the audience react; she knows this is a conversation maker, rather than a fame booster. After the massive success of brat, Charli refuses to continue being in the main pop girl conversation and embraces a phrase from the last song on the album by David Conenberg: “Oblivion is freedom”. This is not a follow up to brat. It’s an artists insights in culture, rather than an acknowledgement to anything she’s ever done before. The project shines for its challenging moments, the provocative commentary, the bad humor, the unpleasant production, and choppy vocals. Charli succeeds at making a record that sounds both calculated and disorienting, an album that achieves a dissonance between its deep message and how chaotic and messy it all comes together. It all becomes a way of rebelling against herself, against brat. One of the most important songs to understand the concept of the record is ‘Camera’, which talks about her experience in cinema; how being an actress or working in movies allowed her to be another person for a moment, and lose herself in the characters. But this Is something that could also apply for music itself, as she can express herself without having to stick to one single persona, nor to brat or any of her eras. The song is catchy, with that repetitive and glitchy guitars that accompany the whole album. It can feel like the outro to this song is what encapsulates the whole album as a concept. Talking about how the singer is always craving new experiences, even if it’s dangerous. The album has several strong points, tracks like “Rock Music”, that brings this odd and awkward yet interesting and hypnotic line at the end of its chorus. Even though, sometimes it can feel a little limited and poor sounding, with its often unorthodox mixing and dry production. What makes this so difficult to complain about is how contradictory it is; you know this was made on purpose. I can praise it for the cynical and smart lyrics, but also criticize it for so many spots with empty songs that actually lack specificity, such as ‘Yeah’ and ‘Wink Wink’, that have some of the most hard hitting instrumentations, but the most vague lyrics. And at the end, you know this is what Charli wanted. It is what makes it so interesting. Another conversation starter point on the record, is ‘SS26’, a commentary in culture, fame, art, and how anything people do can be scrutinized. She uses clever lyrics to describe this raw vision of how the world perceives art and artists’ relationship to its public. It also displays certain acceptance and apathy towards the world and its state right now; how it feels like we’re going straight to hell, but at least have a way to be entertained in the meantime. Anyone who has followed the singer for a long time, knows she could make a great, easy to digest record if she wanted to. However, she refuses to. And she keeps proving that being interesting is better than sounding nice with the last two songs of the record. With ‘Magic Metal Montana’ she writes a love letter to her main collaborator, AG Cook. The lyrics are simple, but that doesn’t mean it’s not effective. Something to appreciate is how AG responds to what she says with his own musical bridge on the last part of the song. This makes it feel more like a conversation between two friends, saying how much they appreciate each other. I must say the album sometimes falls on repetitive soundscapes that might make it a bit too hard for the listener to enjoy. We’d be lying if we didn’t admit that Charli will sometimes go too far trying to force the provocation, and it’s easy to understand her point on making it sound different and challenging, but often times this fails to provoke any deep thoughts and becomes one of those moments that can feel pointless, that might be remembered more because of its pretentiousness rather than for how innovative and clever it could be. This does not take away how thought through the album feels while still sounding messy and spontaneous. This is a really good example of what a raw version of what your own creative process looks like. That’s why it sounds unfinished, and polished at the same time. Carefully crafted, Music, Fashion, Film ends up being almost all substance, with a bit of lack in style.