Charli xcx is not releasing a rock album any time soon, though it was assumed she was when it was reported she had rock music in the works in last month’s issue of British Vogue.
On Friday (May 1), Charli posted previously unseen studio footage on Instagram. The video contains a teaser of an unreleased song recorded in October 2025 at Rue Boyer Studios in Paris.
“It would be cool if we had a song that was called ‘Rock Music,’” she’s seen saying in a brainstorming session, which cuts to scenes of her recording vocals.
“a video of me making a song called ‘rock music’ that is not actually rock music which is funny because i never said i was making a rock album. love you xx,” she captioned the clip Friday on Instagram.
The song does feature guitar, but leans more hyper-pop in production. Lyrics on Charli’s notes app flash by at one point in the reel. They read: “Heritage/ Me, me and my friends/ We go out/ We take pictures/ We make stuff together/ We sometimes cry/ We kiss each other, incestuous vibes/ I knew you’d like that/ Yeah we’re so inspired/ Basically all of the time/ Never stop/ ‘Coz we’re on to the next/ I think the dancefloor is dead/ So now we’re making rock music.”
What Charli herself was actually quoted as saying in that British Vogue cover story, in regards to rock music, was: “What’s interesting for me is to bend the possibilities of what my perspective on that could be.”
She also noted then that rehashing the dance-world Brat built for her followup to the hit album “would have felt really hard, really sad.”
That article’s writer accompanied Charli in February to a West London studio — when her upcoming album was not yet finished, and where she held a listening session reported on for the story — to hear the song that is now known to be “Rock Music.” The only lyric of the song to make it to print: “I think the dance floor is dead, now we’re making rock music.”
At the time, Charli did comment on putting guitar on the album. “For me, it’s fun to flip the form,” she said. “We know there’s gonna be people who are bothered by it, but that’s fine.”
In that interview Charli also revealed that her upcoming album “is commenting on how I interact with the joint main love of my life outside of George [Daniel, her husband]” — her other love being creating art — “and what would happen if that was taken from me. How I would have no purpose, and how for good or bad, art does provide me with purpose in my life.”
Brat peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 in 2024, marking Charli’s highest position on the all-genre album chart to date.
Since then, she’s worked on an album alongside Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights adaptation, which arrived in February. The soundtrack reached No. 8 on the Billboard 200 and debuted at No. 1 on the Soundtracks chart.
Catch a preview from Charli’s “Rock Music” studio session in her Instagram reel below.
