Charli XCX has revealed that she’s moved away from the electronic sound of ‘Brat’ for her next album, saying: “The dance floor is dead, so now we’re making rock music”.
The record became its own cultural phenomenon when it dropped in 2024, inspiring the ‘Brat summer’ craze, seeing Charli headlining huge festivals worldwide, later inspiring her mockumentary, The Moment.
Now, having provided the score for Emerald Fennell’s new Wuthering Heights adaptation and releasing a companion album for the release, Charli has revealed that she is underway with her eighth album and will be shifting towards rock music.
The ‘Von Dutch’ singer opened up about the upcoming record in a new interview with Vogue, where she unveiled previews of new songs and revealed that she knew that she “wanted to go to Paris to do it”.
“We knew it would be this very hectic, rich time and we like creating in that kind of atmosphere,” she said before playing an unreleased song led by electric guitar riffs.
“I think the dance floor is dead, so now we’re making rock music,” she added, explaining that she has been inspired by “being out in the world at night” and determined to not make ‘Brat 2.0’.
“If I’d made another album that felt more dance-leaning, it would have felt really hard, really sad,” she told Vogue. “What’s interesting for me is to bend the possibilities of what my perspective on that could be”.
As for why she is making the shift towards rock music – despite previously saying that her punk-inspired 2014 album ‘Sucker’ was her least favourite and “felt fake” – Charli explained that it was about pushing the boundaries of her sound and trying to find avenues that feel new and exciting.
“I’ve been making music since I was 14. It’s nearly 20 years. I feel very spoiled saying this, but there is not much that can thrill me within music any more,” she explained. “For me, it’s fun to flip the form. We know there’s gonna be people who are bothered by it, but that’s fine.”
“I’d always rather have style than be vague. Which is the biggest crime, in my opinion,” she added, also sharing that it was the intense hype around ‘Brat’ that led to her starting to “crave something opposite”.
“Getting back to something more internal is really nice. And really sort of quiet,” she shared, adding that she wants the new record to centre around how art creates a sense of “purpose in my life”.
“I don’t really want to write songs about my husband forever,” she said, referring to The 1975’s George Daniel, with whom she tied the knot last year. “I’m not sure how interesting that is, and he knows that. If I write about our relationship, I’m probably only really interested in writing about some of the more obscure feelings of being married.”
The main focus this time, she shared, “is commenting on how I interact with the joint main love of my life outside of George [namely art] and what would happen if that was taken from me. How I would have no purpose, and how for good or bad, art does provide me with purpose in my life.”
Charli’s comments were made to the outlet back in February, and while she has not officially announced the new album at time of writing, she has gone on to share a new photo from inside the studio with the caption “I love making things’.
The comments about moving away from ‘Brat’ align with what Charli said at the end of 2025, when she shared that she was “feeling more inspired by film than by music” after being left “stuck, empty and barren” due to the huge response to the album.
Before then, she said that she wanted her next, non-Wuthering Heights album to go in a completely different direction than ‘Brat’,and her producers A.G. Cook, Finn Keane and George Daniel said that the follow-up is shaping up to be “anti-Brat”.
As well as hinting at a “Lou Reed era” rock sound, Charli has also told fans that she is “exploring a lot of stuff with strings” for the upcoming album, and reps confirmed earlier this month that she was close to finishing the record.
She’ll return to the stage to make her headline debut at Reading & Leeds this August, topping the festival bill alongside Fontaines D.C., Raye, Florence + The Machine, Dave and Chase & Status. Visit here for tickets and more information.
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