Charli xcx Releases ‘Rock Music’ Video — Is It Rock, or Is It Not Rock? Fans Agree: The Answer Is Yes

Charli xcx has released her new single and video, “Rock Music,” and at two minutes, its brevity stands in stark contrast to the outsize amount of discussion it will spark about her new direction in the post-“Brat” era. Most crucially, fans now have a chance to decide whether she was being closer to the truth when she was indicating it would be rock music or when she was laughingly suggesting it wouldn’t be rock at all.

The answer to all these questions seems to be: yes. And whatever it is or isn’t, her followers are coming together in unison in saying they are ready for a lot more than a minute and 55 seconds of it.

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Among the immediate comments on the YouTube link for the track: “The concept of a song titled rock music that isn’t rock music but it’s still rock music. Charli queencx.” “xcx-ified indie sleaze HALLELUJAH.” “HYPEROCK IS BEING BORN TODAY.” Genre issues aside, some fans looked to past eras for comparisons: “Returning to Sucker omg.” “Sounds like the stuff from Myspace era Charli to me, amazing.”

There were comments on the electronically staccato way the title phrase is rendered: “The lyrics: ROROROROROROCK MUSIC.” Some looked for Easter eggs in the lyrics or imagery: “Corset as the neck brace is so real.” And the song length itself came up for discussion: “Come on! Just 1:55!?”

The music video stretches to a hefty 2:04 with a bit of silent footage at the beginning and end. It starts with Charli smoking in a building’s overhead window and then smiling at the camera as she pushes a TV tube set onto the street below — honoring two of rock ‘n’ roll’s most time-honored delinquent activities. At the climax, the music, seemingly stuck in a digital rut, comes to a halt as a static image of Charli is busted through by a bunch of young men seemingly bringing a mosh pit out into the open.

In-between, in the mostly but not entirely black-and-white footage, there is much, much, much more smoking, from a sexily dressed Charli stubbing her cigarette out in a man’s room-service meal to the singer posing amid small mountains of cigs. She also is seen cavorting in the street in Times Square — in fleeting footage that the intersection was probably not actually shut down for — and rocking out (or is it “rocking out?”) — with a trio.

Aidan Zamiri is the video’s director, and Imogene Strauss is credited as creative director. A press release issued for the song in Friday morning’s wee hours contained simply a pair of links and the message: “Created by Charli, Alex and Finn,” aka A. G. Cook and Finn Keane.

The tone of the tune leans more electronic than guitar-based, but not to the extent that the title actually seems like a lie. The most immediate debate, actually, is not so much about whether the song is rock as whether it is truly meant as a First Single. It’s on the experimental side of Charli’s ouevre, although at this point in her popularity she may be primed to make the uncommercial commercial, with or without a radio- or TV-friendly track. It may be true that a second release from the album really tells the tale.

Earlier, Charli had gotten the discussion going by declaring: “I think the dancefloor is dead, so now we’re making rock music.” Talking with journalist Laura Snapes for a cover story in British Vogue, Charli said of her forthcoming eighth album, “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… For me, it’s fun to flip the form. We know there’s gonna be people who are bothered by it, but that’s fine.” 

But in response to the “Charli goes rock” meme she’d created, she clarified, or un-clarified: “I never said I was making a rock album.”

And now everyone knows what she means. Sort of. Maybe.