Charli xcx’s rock era is already doing what rock eras are supposed to do: divide, provoke, and refuse to smooth out the edges. After the culture bending rush of Brat, her new chapter began with the divisive “Rock Music”, a scrappy, abrasive pivot that split listeners almost on arrival. But Charli seems fully at peace with the friction. As she put it, “i’m not trying to repel people away or convince people into liking me. i’m doing what i feel is truthful to me.” That honesty feels like the real engine of this phase. Messier, darker, less concerned with consensus. And it is precisely this provocative, uncompromising, unsweetened energy that keeps Charli standing apart from the rest of the pop field.
Now, she deepens that world further with “SS26”, a grungy, fashion soaked new single that turns the runway into something closer to an apocalypse fantasy. In the Torso directed video, Charli xcx moves through the glamorous chaos of a major fashion show, changing looks, walking the catwalk, and watching the whole spectacle tilt toward disaster. Former Vogue Paris editor Carine Roitfeld appears in the front row and sets the tone with the line, “Fashion won’t save us. But let’s go on the runway and walk.” Abra also makes a cameo, while Charli leans into the track’s end of the world mood with the lyric “Walking on a runway that goes straight to hell.” It is stylish, strange, and sharply Charli: a pop star turning collapse into a look.
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