Charli XCX teases shift

Charli XCX is signaling that her next album will move away from club music and toward guitars, with British Vogue publishing a lyric that says, “I think the dance floor is dead.” (variety.com) Variety, citing British Vogue’s new cover story, reported on April 16 that the untitled record was made with “Brat” collaborators A. G. Cook and Finn Keane and will use less Auto-Tune than her last era. (variety.com) Charli told British Vogue that she, Cook and Keane started recording in Paris in fall 2025 after the long commercial run of “Brat.” She also said another dance-leaning album would have felt “really hard” and “really sad.” (variety.com) The pivot lands after “Brat,” released on June 7, 2024, became Charli’s biggest mainstream breakthrough and turned her rave-rooted sound into a pop reference point well beyond her core fan base. (officialcharts.com) That album also carried into the 2025 Grammy Awards, where “Brat” won best dance/electronic album and “Von Dutch” won best dance pop recording. Billboard reported that Charli also won best recording package that night. (billboard.com) She has already spent 2026 widening her lane. In February, she released “Wuthering Heights,” a 12-track companion album to Emerald Fennell’s film adaptation, after what began as a plan to contribute one original song. (consequence.net) Apple Music’s album notes say Charli took that project as a chance to work inside a more “raw, wild, sexual, gothic, British” world, and the release leaned on strings, feedback and guest spots including John Cale and Sky Ferreira. (music.apple.com) Her 2026 calendar still points to large pop stages even as she talks about a stylistic reset. Billboard’s artist page lists her among the announced acts for Lollapalooza 2026. (billboard.com) What comes next is still unnamed and undated. But the first public description is clear: after the neon club maximalism of “Brat,” Charli is framing the next phase as a rock record made on her own terms. (variety.com)