Charli XCX Responds To Critics Of Her Rock-Inspired New Era

Charli XCX has spoken out about the mixed reaction to her latest musical releases.

Last year, the Grammy winner’s go-to co-producers A.G. Cook and Finn Keane made it clear that the British performer would be taking a “complete opposite” approach when it came to the follow-up to her hugely-successful 2024 album Brat.

The latter went as far as saying that Charli’s new music would have an “anti-Brat” ethos, which she’s lived up to so far, first releasing a soundtrack album to accompany Emerald Fennells’ adaptation of Wuthering Heights earlier in 2026, and later unveiling new music with more organic instrumentation that she claimed had taken inspiration from rock.

So far, singles Rock Music and SS26 have had quite the polarised reaction from Charli fans, which the 360 singer addressed in a new TikTok video.

“I made an album and it’s really different from the last one,” she told her followers on Sunday night. “That is a fact. And I love it! And you might not, and that’s cool.”

Charli added: “If you do [love the new album] that’s cute, but if you don’t, that’s totally OK because that’s just what it is to have personal preferences. Yeah!”

So far, Rock Music peaked at number 36 in the UK singles chart, while SS26 has reached 43.

In April, Charli told British Vogue: “If I’d made another album that felt more dance-leaning, it would have felt really hard, really sad. But what is interesting to me is to bend the possibilities of what my perspective on that could be.”

Anticipating that her new music might not be a crowd-pleaser among fans of the dance-pop she’s already known for, she added: “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.”

Following the release of Rock Music, Charli wrote on Instagram that she’d found it “really interesting” to see “all the different reactions to my song”.

“It’s all kind of fascinating,” she said. “I love talking about music and art with my friends, so I’m happy people are throwing out thoughts. I’m not gonna explain where I was coming from with Rock Music, but all I know is that things can be funny, earnest, sincere, and joyful all at the same time and that’s what I feel about a lot of the things I make.”