Here’s the truth, and I gotta be honest, when I heard that Charli xcx was doing a “special listening event” of her new album at Metrograph, I knew two things: phones were going to be jailed up, and there was going to be a feral, foaming-at-the-mouth crowd outside of the famed Lower East Side cinema for indie darlings. Well, I was half right. Phones locked up? Yes. Fan behavior? Composed, respectful, and tame, as though they were waiting for their favorite painter’s next exhibit at a gallery in Chelsea, though palpable admiration was bursting at the seams, especially among admirers who didn't get a ticket and wound up pleading their case to security—one girl proclaiming that she was “ready to drop hundreds of dollars for a ticket.” (I feel you, girl.)
The Grammy winner’s next album, Music, Fashion, Film, is set to be released on July 24. To celebrate the new record, Charli xcx hosted listening events across the country exclusively in independent cinemas, to support them and complement the ethos of the project. The album cover's totemic trio of old-head cultural advisers includes the great New York director Martin Scorsese, and New York audiences were treated to Charli introducing the experience in person at Metrograph—fitting, since Charli has spent the press tour for Pete Ohs' Erupcja, her lead acting debut, explaining how she met the director one night at 4 a.m. as she stumbled in to meet her friend and eventual co-star Jeremy O. Harris at Clandestino, just barely a two-minute walk from the cinema.
Upon entering the theater, Old Friend Photo Booth had a setup in the lobby, alongside complimentary Music, Fashion, Film-branded signage and white cups, surely a souvenir that attendees will be taking home for summer pre-games to come. To no surprise, before entering one of two theaters, all of our phones were locked up. Any gut punch felt lasted for maybe a minute, before the free album-branded t-shirts waiting on our seats seemed to take everyone's no-phone anxiety away. When Miss Brat herself came out to address the crowd, the first thing she said was, “I’m really nervous. Oh, and don’t fucking film. I mean, it's gonna leak somehow, I mean it already has, whatever," to an erupcja of laughter.
“Well, this is the first listen of the album," she continued, "and I think there couldn't be a better place to hear it. I am so proud of this body of work, and I made all of the videos and the footage that are accompanying the songs with my friends, and that's kind of like a big theme throughout the record: me and my friends—you know, controversially.” (Big laugh.) “We had so much fun making these little vignettes and films, and we were filming a lot throughout the recording process of Music, Fashion, Film, which was mostly made in Paris, but a little bit kind of all over the place.”
“I would say this album is, in a way, all about how lucky I feel to be able to do what I do. I feel so indebted to art, to get to create things. I feel like it's such a huge part of who I am, and without being able to make things, I kind of don't know who I would be. That's such a pleasure, but also there are torturous things about that too, the fact that I probably don't know who I am without being able to make songs and write and create things. I just love this record, and I hope that you love it too, but also if you don't, that's totally fine. I hope you enjoy it, and I'm glad that you get to see it here at the Metrograph, and thank you to the Metrograph for having us, and yeah, love you.”
Upon her exit, a fan yelled, “The Peoples’ Princess!” And if you listened really, really closely, you could hear your favorite twink screaming the same thing from their rooftop in Bushwick (complimentary).
It's unclear at press time if the visual accompaniment that unfolded on the Metrograph screen will ever be released, but oh boy, does it and the album itself completely rip—a complete departure from Charli’s Brat era. Ahead of most of the songs, there is a brief explanation of either what influenced it or how certain elements of it came together. Ahead of “Camera,” there’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it celebrity cameo that film freaks will completely devour. “Magic Metal Montana” had me wholesomemaxxing throughout the whole thing. And let’s just say Cronenberg himself will be very satisfied with the visuals behind his feature. I am very, very here for this new era.
I caught up with some of the fans in the lobby after, all of whom were visibly ascending, including pop culture aficionado Alison Sivitz, who you may know as Bald Ann Dowd. She tweeted, upon seeing the tracklist, “charli cronenberg feature is so crazy she heard my distressed cries and came to the rescue.”
“I think her inability to be embarrassed, or at least outwardly embarrassed, is what makes her so cool,” Sivitz told me. “It's so much an album about ego and the impermanence of everything and just saying fuck it and allowing yourself to mess up and be embarrassed, and that is speaking to me right now. There's a song on there called ‘I'm Afraid’; it was my favorite one.”
Between music, fashion, and film, which would Bald Ann Dowd fuck, marry, and kill? “I'm going to marry film, obviously,” she proclaimed. “Film is always there for me. I'm going to fuck music, and then I have to kill fashion, because I love to dress like Adam Sandler.” And, well, I added, “I literally had the same.”
The fans’ energy was genuinely so awesome. “She's so—can I say cunt? I can say that she's really cunt, and I think that everything that we just saw should be released because it was so perfect and it was so artistic,” Ella Paz from the East Village told me. Ella would marry film, fuck music, and kill fashion. “I love fashion, but it can be dead.”
Ethan Berman, who lives on the Upper East Side, said, “I think it's a complete reinvention of what she thinks her perspective is from society. I think I have to marry music, because that's ultimately what is driving the soundtrack to our lives, what's really shaping humanity; that came before everything else. You didn't have fashion or film before you had music, and I think that's why she put it first. I would have to fuck film, because ultimately they go hand in hand. I’d kill fashion, because ultimately you don't need it. Like RuPaul said it best, ‘We're all born naked and the rest is drag.’”
Scott Higgins, from Williamsburg, already “can’t wait to hear it again.” He added, “I'm definitely really impressed by the stream-of-consciousness sort of feelings. I think she's one of the most vulnerable and honest artists that we have in pop music—speaking things that maybe other people might feel uncomfortable saying. Sonically, I'm really surprised at how rock it feels, since she seemed a little bit resistant to call it that in the press for the album. It's really guitar heavy, very dark and moody, and different from anything she's released so far.” Scott would marry music “because I really don't think I could get through life without it,” fuck film, and kill fashion.
I saw some photos yesterday of the American Horror Story: Coven witches filming something in New York City for the upcoming new season. I couldn’t help but think of a quote from that season: “When a new Supreme rises, the old one fades away.” I don’t think Brat will ever fade away, but I am shaking with excitement for you all to listen to Music, Fashion, Film and watch a new Supreme rise way up.