Charli XCX drops new single ‘Rock Music’, Moody video

The pop star Charli XCX released her new solo song, Rock Music. The song was released on Friday with a music video.

The official video for the song, directed by Aidan Zamiri and shot predominantly in black and white, starts with Charli throwing a speaker out of a window and smoking multiple cigarettes at once. In a social media post, she wrote, “Rock music, song and video out now.”

It came after an interview in Vogue appeared to suggest the 360 singer was “making rock music” for her follow-up to 2024’s Brat, before she said in a post on Instagram, “I never said I was making a rock album.”

She further mentioned during the interview, “If I’d made another album that felt more dance-leaning, it would have felt really hard, really sad, but what’s interesting for me is to bend the possibilities of what my perspective on that could be.” The “Brat summer” trend, which caused a frenzy on social media, incorporated sultry fashion choices inspired by the neon green and black album cover.

Of her new record, she said, “We were doing our version of analogue, which is so silly and funny, but putting it through our lens, and making sure that nothing felt too macho was important”. Charli XCX also gave insights into her new album, revealing that it would be inspired by her love of art and “what would happen if that was taken from me”, and how it gives her purpose in life.