Music News: Everything you need to know about Charli xcx’s new single ‘Rock Music’
Charli xcx released a new single on May 8 titled ‘Rock Music’ ahead of her upcoming eighth studio album.
Here, Music News Blitz’s Amelie Da Costa gives us a rundown on the new single and the future album.
The confirmation of the new album
In a cover interview with British Vogue in April, Charli confirmed she’s working on her eighth album following her extremely successful 2024 album ‘BRAT’.
“I think the dance floor is dead, so now we’re making rock music”, she said, verifying that ‘BRAT summer’ is officially over and we’re moving on to a different path.
Following the release of the new single, it looks like the album itself is still going to have that classic club feel, with her well-known style of electronic beats.
She later posted a video on Instagram after speculation of the whole album shifting genres, and captioned “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’, debunking rumours that she was changing her sound.
There has been no other information about the new album's release and when it will be dropping on streaming platforms.
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Charli xcx’s rise to fame
Fans might find it hard to move on from the iconic ‘BRAT summer’ that was reigning for nearly two years following its release in June 2024.
‘BRAT’ became the album that solidified Charli xcx as a global superstar and marked a new sound for modern pop music.
The album is heavily electropop, hyperpop and dance-pop that is influenced by club culture, bringing that high energy into the summer of 2024.
It took over TikTok, with fans making up dances to the songs and celebrating the ‘BRAT summer’ aesthetic.
The album includes massive hits such as ‘Apple’, ‘365’, ‘360’ and ‘Von Dutch’, and has accumulated over two billion streams on Spotify as of 2026.
She then went on to release the remix album ‘Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat’, where she collaborated with massive names such as Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande, Troye Sivan, Lorde and more.
The remix album became a bigger success than the original album, racking up over four billion streams on Spotify as of 2026.
New single information
So far, Charli’s new single has been successful, accumulating nearly five million streams in just under a week.
For ‘Rock Music’ she worked with A.G. Cook on the new song, who was an executive producer of her album ‘BRAT’, and she also worked with Finn Keane, who shaped the album into its high energy sound.
Throughout the song, there are distorted guitar riffs mixed in with her signature electronic beats, making it sound different to the ‘BRAT’ era.
It isn't a typical rock anthem, as the guitar riffs and the electronic beat throughout creates a distinctive sound that still reflects the rock genre, but has its own twist to it.
The song length isn't overly long, with it being just under two minutes, but most of her songs since the rise of ‘BRAT’ have never been lengthy.
She is still adopting the iconic autotune that she is known for, but it seems to be a little toned down, allowing fans to hear slightly more of her raw vocals.
We cannot wait to see what the rest of the album is going to sound like and we know it is going to be another huge success for Charli, taking her career in the music industry to a deeper level.
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