Rock Music Returns to Outside Lands 2026
An exhilarating Friday featuring Wet Leg, Sierra Ferrell, Geese, Turnstile and Charli XCX brings rock back to San Francisco’s Outside Lands Festival in a big way.
charli xcx
Charli XCX Discovers the Antidote to Fame
On Music, Fashion, Film, Charli XCX turns experimentation into self-deprecation, vindicating pop music’s commercialism.
Charli XCX’s New Album Is a Celebration of the Working Class
Charli XCX, now on her seventh record, pursues the continuum of human feelings and flairs. This may be the most humane entry yet in the grand canon.
Charli XCX’s ‘Music, Fashion, Film’ Is Too Cool For Its Own Good
Music, Fashion, Film is Charli XCX desperately trying to find something that feels cool, risky, and exciting to her after having her original vision of cool co-opted.
Charli XCX Immortalizes a Moment
By satirizing Brat’s success, The Moment argues that Charli XCX is ambivalent to the accolades she cannot help but chase.
Charli XCX Brilliantly Channels Kate Bush and Emily Brontë
Kate Bush and Charli XCX, in their own ways, challenge the vernacular of contemporary songcraft, a commitment that paid off for both women.
2025 Marks Pop Music’s Gilded Age
Embracing craft alongside vulnerability in the 2020s, pop music reaches the apex of its powers in 2025 by reveling in its own glamorous facade.
Camping in Charli XCX’s Brat Summer
The Camp sensibility in Charli XCX’s Brat and its many cultural offshoots propagated a new form of Camp that Susan Sontag might not recognize.
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The 30 Best Pop Albums of 2024
The 30 best pop albums of 2024 radiate with unstoppable playlist power, much-needed sweet escapism, self-reflection, self-criticism, and killer melodies.
Featured: Top of Home Page/Features/Lists/Music/Music Features/PopMatters Picks/The Best Music of 2024
The 50 Best Albums of 2024 So Far
The 50 best albums of 2024 offer sublime music as major artists return with new work and brilliant new sounds bubble up from the underground and worldwide.
Charli XCX Is Everything on ‘Brat’
Brat is next-level Charli XCX, a miracle and an instant classic. It’s the kind of album that makes you feel lucky to be alive at the same time as it.
Does Gay Fandom Help Pop Divas?
Looking at Rina Sawayama, Azealia Banks, Charli XCX, and Kim Petras’ rise and fall in the charts one wonders – does gay fandom help pop divas’ careers?