Charli XCX Dials Up the Distortion: "The Dancefloor is Dead, So Now We’re Making Rock Music"

“I think the dancefloor is dead, so now we’re making rock music.” That's the provocative statement from Charli XCX, featured in a new British Vogue cover story. The article primarily focuses on her upcoming album, the highly anticipated follow-up to her critically acclaimed 2024 release, Brat.

Since Brat, Charli has been incredibly productive, releasing her Wuthering Heights soundtrack album in February and taking on numerous acting roles. Yet, amidst this whirlwind, she's found time to craft another record.

When Charli mentions "we," she's referring to her collaborations with longtime partners A. G. Cook and Finn Keane (formerly known as Easyfun). While Cook is renowned as a hyperpop pioneer, he's contributing guitar to this new, rock-infused project. Writer Laura Snapes met with Charli, Cook, and Keane in Paris during last October's Fashion Week, where they were actively working on the album. Charli explained, "We knew we wanted to go to Paris to do it. We knew it would be this very hectic, rich time, and we like creating in that kind of atmosphere."

These comments surfaced shortly after Madonna announced Confessions II, her new album, with press releases emphasizing a return to dancefloor euphoria. However, Madonna is a master of pop reinvention. After Charli's full immersion into club sounds with Brat, a shift towards a different sonic landscape feels like a natural progression.

In the Vogue story, Charli states, "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." She acknowledges a tension between creating for herself and the external pressures of the industry: "Now there’s just so much noise around anything else that I do in a way that I sometimes find a bit pointless. I’m like, ‘Why don’t I just make the album and listen to it with A. G. and Finn?’ But there’s obviously a narcissism that prevents me from doing that." She's also experimenting with less Auto-Tune on her vocals, aiming for "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."

A. G. Cook elaborates on the album's direction: "It’s looking for this intensity. It’s not just this flex of, ‘Oh, I did this other album.’ She’s really responding to a feeling that a lot of people have in 2026 of there being so much, almost too much. What do you hold onto? I’m inspired by seeing how she’s so ready to do that rather than take it easy."

During the British Vogue interview, Charli previewed several tracks for Snapes. One song features "queasy feedback warps beneath a dead-eyed incantation about going shopping for a new personality and falling at the first hurdle," with the lyric "Card declined." Another track contrasts "tough guitar against a sweet vocal chant," including the line "I can take you to heaven like it’s 2007/ Pop star in my bedroom like it’s 2007."

Snapes describes another song as "a scuffed, sweetly melancholy song about the 'quite mad' night at the philosopher girl’s apartment,'" reflecting on the transient nature of the Brat era. A key lyric captures this sentiment: "Nothing’s gonna last forever/ And no one’s gonna last forever." Another new song, more subdued than the others, explores how acting evokes "something new and undiscovered and something kinda violent" in Charli, drawing comparisons to the introspective Brat track "I Think About It All The Time." She also reiterates her admiration for Lou Reed: "He’s not a traditional figure in any way, shape or form."

Charli also mentioned that she wants to move away from writing songs specifically about her husband, George Daniel of The 1975. Instead, the new record "is commenting on how I interact with the joint main love of my life outside of George and what would happen if it was taking from me — how I would have no purpose, and how for good or bad, art does provide me with purpose in my life."

The article also reveals that Charli suffers from "serious nerve damage in her neck from performing," a consequence of the intense headbanging during the Brat tour. She reflects on her arena experiences: "I never thought I’d play arenas in my life, and who knows if I will again. Maybe I won’t, but after you’ve done a few, you’re like, ‘Oh, this place.’ It really happens."

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