Will Charli XCX’s next album be rock? Post-Brat expectations

Charli XCX is the busiest pop star of the moment, with a schedule that would make even the Pope jealous. Since the explosion of the Brat musical and cultural phenomenon, the artist has never stopped: she barely had time to announce the end of "Brat summer" during Coachella 2025 before already having a second tour with Troye Sivan in hand, two new recording projects, and a rapidly rising acting career, including cameos, leading roles, and documentaries in production. «It will be hard to leave Brat behind,» she had said to the press some time ago, but reality seems different: the pop star wants to break away from that imagery and from the overwhelming success that changed her life, to embark on a completely new artistic path.

The post-Brat era has been all about cinema

The transition toward a new artistic chapter is not happening suddenly, but methodically. Charli XCX announced the end of Brat with great theatricality: last year, at Coachella, she ended her set by setting fire to the huge acid-green flag that had defined the album’s entire visual identity. The video, posted on social media with the caption «Let it burn,» marked the end of an era, but from the ashes Charli was already building her future.

After completing the second and final leg of the Sweat Tour alongside Troye Sivan, Charli XCX moved closer to the big screen. During the Brat era, in collaboration with director Aidan Zamiri, the singer created her first documentary/mockumentary The moment. Premiered in January at the Sundance Film Festival, the film translates the Brat phenomenon into a cinematic dimension, where the boundary between reality and fiction is deliberately blurred. Charli plays an exaggerated, diva-like version of herself, with staged arguments with her team and appearances from her Brat girls, from Julia Fox to Rachel Sennott. It’s an operation of remarkable intelligence: Charli uses the mask of fiction to shield her true nature and, at the same time, to definitively bid farewell to the era that brought her into the spotlight.

The connection between Charli XCX and cinema has become an intense courtship that between 2025 and 2026 seems to have turned into a true artistic partnership, from the Venice Film Festival, where she presented last September the period fantasy 100 Nights of Hero, to the stages of TIFF, where she appeared as a mystical Mother Nature in the satirical thriller Sacrifice and as co-star in the anti-romantic comedy Erupcja. The artist also took part in the remake of Faces of Death directed by Daniel Goldhaber and is expected in Gregg Araki’s upcoming film, I Want Your Sex.

In this cinematic rise, her collaboration with Emerald Fennell stands out for the remake of Wuthering Heights (released in theaters last February): although the director had initially commissioned a single track, creative urgency took over, pushing Charli to compose the entire soundtrack of the film. The project, warmly received by critics thanks to the monumental collaboration with John Cale and the widely discussed clash with Sky Ferreira, was described by the singer as an experimental detour, detached from her past and future projects. However, in light of recent rumors about a new chapter expected by the end of 2026, press and fans are beginning to connect the dots: that Wuthering Heights is a preview of the artist’s next sonic evolution.

XCX8 spoilers

To be honest, the first spoiler of this new artistic phase for Charli XCX leaked more than a year ago. During Paris Fashion Week in October 2025, the pop star posted on social media a now-deleted video featuring a snippet of audio with tense, dramatic strings. Today, that very brief preview is no longer a mystery, revealing itself as an early trace of her new aesthetic. After removing every trace of the Brat Era from both her main profile and her secondary account, recently renamed b.sides (ex 360_brat), the artist broke her silence with a black-and-white shot with an analog grain.

The caption confirms the past Paris session at the Rue Boyer studios with producers Finn Keane and A.G. Cook. From this comes confirmation that the Wuthering Heights phase contains a taste of what, in the pages of British Vogue, Charli XCX has dubbed her «rock reinvention». In the soundtrack, the use of classical instruments coexists with synthetic disturbances and acoustic distortions; particularly in the track with John Cale, the gothic atmosphere is evoked by solemn organs and abrasive electric guitars, pointing toward indie rock.

A rock album with some controversy

In her latest interview with British Vogue, the pop star offers further details about the new project: she said she is working on a record with little autotune, more raw and analog in search of a rough and personal sound. A rock shift but deeply melancholic, which will explore her relationship with love and art. Stirring debate and not a little controversy was one specific statement: «I think the dancefloor is dead, so now we’re making rock music.» After reaching the peak of electro-pop, with these words Charli chooses to kill her most successful creation both to avoid becoming trapped by it and to shift her community’s expectations toward a sound that will be completely Anti-Brat.

This statement, which declares the end of the aesthetic that has defined the last two years of pop culture, taps into a clear point of cultural saturation: saying that the dancefloor is dead suggests that audiences are no longer seeking just an electronic beat, but desire a different experience that, on her next tour, might manifest as a shift from rave to ritual concert, made of voices and instruments in their entirety. The singer’s words did not go unnoticed, sparking a heated media discussion just as Madonna officially announced a return to dance with the second part of Confessions on the Dance Floor, expected next July.

The artist’s provocation has generated some discontent among her peers: Rochelle Jordan intervened on X to emphasize how club culture is more vibrant than ever, kept alive by artists like Pink Pantheress, Kaytranada, and Channel Tres. While fandom and press scour the web for new clues with high expectations, Charli observes the buzz with the detachment of a true rockstar. As she herself has hinted, commercial success is no longer her benchmark: this record could be a triumph or a glorious flop, and she’s perfectly fine with that.