Not A Single Kiss Goodbye

Charli XCX “Camera” The aesthetic premise of Music, Fashion, Film is basically “pop-punk, but aesthetically interesting.” Charli XCX has been toying with rock sounds through her entire career, so it’s not surprising she’d tip in this direction. If anything, she’s always been a punk making pop and dance music, and not the other way around. The intriguing thing about this body of work is how she and collaborators AG Cook and Finn Keane reinterpret a very 00s version of rock music. They clearly have a lot of affection for the dynamics of pop-punk and “landfill indie” of their youth, but not so much the drab and limited palette of all that music. They splice up chords, aggressively transpose and mutilate timbre, and glitch it up to avoid plodding rhythms. It’s not unprecedented – for one thing, Madonna and Mirwais were on this at the turn of the 21st century – but it’s well-executed and highly effective in applying fresh style to an overly familiar form. It is a little frustrating to me…