Every Single Album - 'Music, Fashion, Film' | Every Single Album: Charil xcx

Episode Date: July 30, 2026

Charli xcx is back with her first studio album post-'Brat.' Nora and Nathan break down 'Music, Fashion, Film' and talk about how the success of the brat era shaped this record (1:00), the more experimental moments on this album in songs like "Card Declined" and "No One Lasts Forever" (27:43), and the themes of fame and insecurity that this album touches on (42:46).Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Nathan HubbardProducer: Kaya McMullen Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to every single album. I'm Nora Princeati. And as always, I am joined by my friend Nathan Hubbard for a conversation about Charlie X-E-X, the post-Brat era and her new album Music Fashion Film, which was released last Friday. Nathan, you and I have had a few chances to talk about Charlie since Brat, since she has had several movie projects,

which we have discussed, including the Wuthering Heights, soundtrack. But I have found myself listening to this album and thinking about this album very much as the canonical follow-up to Brat. What did you think about music, fashion film in general, and did you think about it in those terms? I don't know how you think about it without those terms. and I think it's so unfair to the artist because you want to just treat everything as its own separate identity, but you also can't ignore

the Wuthering Heights soundtrack. Charlie has been on since Brat came out. Charlie has been on since that 360 video that just changed a lot in music in some ways, in Lleleason pop music in some ways, where it was like, wait a minute, what the fuck?

is this, and both visually and sonically, and that's something that's interesting about this album for me is, I actually think, as I sit here now, I mean, first, the most interesting thing about this album to me, Nora, is it may not be number one this week. It may be number one, but it may not be. And if it is, it will still have done about 75,000 units, which will be about 60% of what Gracie's number one album was last week. And so just from a data perspective, that is really interesting to me. But I'm just going to say this to you. I had not watched the YouTube presentation of this album until I had listened to the album maybe four or five times.

and I don't actually think you can understand this album or get it or really absorb it fully until you have listened to until you have absorbed music fashion film with all three of those genre components working together. Yeah, working together in the, I think this is a visual album and I think she tells us a lot about what this is about through the film medium

and it makes a lot more sense to me through that medium on a standalone basis it's 30 minutes it feels like there's a lot of filler including the last two and a half minutes of the last song which is just one phrase over and over and over again

they are dead they are gone no one lasts forever they are dead they are gone no one lasts forever including you know whatever the heck goes on in card declined where there's some filler and then there's like a coda song at the end that makes, there's a lot in this album that is a short period.

You could edit this down potentially to 20 minutes. But I also think it's the continuation of and the continued publishing of the way that Charlie writes, which is I think she has these ideas. I think she has a melody. and it might be the chorus for I love it, which is her biggest streaming song with iconopop, right? It might be just the one little line in wink wink. I used to like cranial stories in the summer.

Maybe I fucked your dad. Which I think she just built a song around and she doesn't concern herself with whether that song is a minute and 14 seconds or five and a half minutes. And so there is something that I learned about. her on as an artist on this. And I think the more that I absorbed it through the multimedia format of the album, the more I was able to slip into it. But I do think at a macro level, that data for me is the most interesting thing. And it makes me wonder whether the always on strategy, since the 360

video, is the right one, is the wrong one for maintaining your sort of presence in consciousness. how do you respond to that? So tell me a little bit more explicitly what that data says to you. Because to me, I hear Charlie doing, did you say 60 or 70% of Gracie? 60% maybe. To you, is that a big number or a small one?

It's smaller than I thought. Oh, that strikes me as bigger than I would expect. Even through the funny thing about Brat is even when that shade of green was like plastered all over everything, with the exception of a couple songs, particularly guess with the Billy feature because that became absolutely huge.

They weren't being consumed at a crazy, crazy rate. She, like, stayed a little bit niche even when she was the most ubiquitous person in the world. So I guess that strikes me a little bit differently. And I almost find there to be a comfort in the ways in which this album feels about like a first draft. Or it just feel,

you know, it is sort of most fundamentally, I think, about creativity, like about the process of creating and just what it means to be compelled to do that and what it means for her. And I guess I find it to almost like covet the smallness that she had more before Brat. Yeah. So I don't know that I would think of it. it doesn't come naturally to me to think of it in terms of, oh, if it doesn't match someone like Gracie Abrams who has much softer edges than Charlie.

Yeah. But I mean, Gracie's got four songs that have streamed over half a billion on Spotify. Charlie's got seven, almost eight. Apple's almost there. Yeah, but Charlie's been at it for... a lot longer. Yeah.

But of those eight, it's like, it's guests, like you said, it's 360, it's going to be Apple. Yeah, there's some others. I mean, I think, I think it's impossible to follow up something that, like, there's way more people

who've heard Brat than have actually heard the album, right? Who have some sense of Charlie X, CX and Brat being a cultural thing. Yes. Than have heard the album. Brat Summer. Brat Summer is a much,

bigger phenomenon than Brat the album. Yeah. And I think what's cool about this album is that it actually doesn't feel massively ambitious and like in any way, shape, or form it's trying to top or be a companion to Brat. In a lot of ways, yeah, I think you're right. It is smaller in its scope and it is decidedly indie, cool underground, not intended to be. be mainstream. Did you see the moment? No.

So you gotta go, I rewatched the moment on a plane this weekend and you should watch it. I think you'd get a kick out of it. Without totally spoiling. It is a little bit satirical, of course.

You take it with a grain of salt. But the picture in that movie is of a pop star who has accomplished the thing that a pop star is supposed to crave accomplishing. and what that has done is made that person totally miserable and detached that person from their own creative process,

which has been handed over to anyone from the label to the ideas about, oh, well, you know, now that you can appeal to a bigger audience, you can do these different types of collaborations. But of course, like, if you're going to do a campaign with XYZ brand, it has to be brand friendly and therefore like blah, blah, blah, blah. And it just like, I don't think that that's how Charlie actually feels about brat, but I do think that it's something that she thought about a lot in the aftermath of brat. And it was interesting to go back to that and then to be spending time with this because this feels like such an embrace of not trying to do that stuff.

Like not trying to make big singles, not trying to go for it in that way. And like in some ways I think that's it's very easy to be likable by seeming like you don't care. care about that stuff. Like, of course, that's an attractive quality. It's in some ways, like, the harder thing to pull off is kind of owning a certain type of ambition while still seeming like a real person. And I think, like, she's just for better and for worse, she's much cooler than that. And I think that's sort of how she always comes across to me. But there's a lot of effort that goes into this. Totally. Like, the filming project of it, there is a lot of effort. I do. I like the way that you position this as it feels like it's in first draft format.

I'm almost, this feels like a collection of ideas more than an album. And I think it deserves praise and maybe some criticism for that. In that I wonder if she'd spent some more time with this if there would be more teeth and substance to it. But it does seem to have a richer meaning than you would expect from what is only 30. minutes of music. Yeah, I mean, I'll say that I've, I got a richer meaning from it. I don't, I think I sometimes found myself kind of waffling on like how to feel like this is a substantial meal. But overall, I did. Like, I think that, I think that it feels like, it feels so driven by a clear impulse of being sort of a thesis project about like why she's compelled to be an artist,

like why she's compelled to make things and make things with her friends and to keep that at the center of what she does. And so like I didn't, I didn't feel like there was filler. I thought it was a pretty complete 30 minutes. It's still 30 minutes. And a lot of the songs are two minutes long and there are definitely moments where I find myself going like, what would the next 45 seconds have been? Like, what would the next, what would the slightly more fleshed out version of this have been? But I also find there to be a real pulse and energy and immediacy to the way these things

feel sort of tossed off. And I do think she manages to say something. I think she manages to say a lot of things. So I don't... Is it about music, fashion, and film? That's a really good question. Because it's a really big statement of an album and it's a big cover with the people who are on it.

And I don't come away with it feeling maybe, except for the last track, like a bold statement about art and creation or anything, which is sort of what I thought we might be getting. Oh, so I thought, like, I don't know how bold it is, but I find it to be a very true and true seeming statement about art and creation. I don't really know what I think she's saying individually about music, fashion, or film as one or what their relationship is to each other.

I wonder if, like, I think I can sense a little bit of the Genesis in how this album came about because she had spoken, she'd given a couple interviews, I guess, about a year or ago. And including there was one or two times when she basically said, like, I'm just more compelled by movies right now. And I think we can now understand that to be a little bit of like, you know, Charlie is a self-professed workaholic, but I think she also post-brat felt burned out. And I think she felt a little bit drained. And for the music to not be. coming particularly easily in that moment. And so I think she reinvested herself

or invested herself more than she had previously, professionally, in doing some stuff in the movies. And that was creatively... She sort of tells us why on the song camera on this album, too, right? Because it's the only way to feel like I'm not actually me. And maybe this is it. Maybe it's what I need, because it's the only way to feel like I'm not actually me.

And in a funny way, it sounds like that, you know, just through being a refreshing exercise and also through getting her involved in Wuthering Heights, it sounds like that brought her back to making music. And so I don't know. Maybe that, and she's gone to a lot of fashion shows. It's a good question. What I feel confident saying is I hear her saying something about just being an artist and about creativity. and about the process being what she cares about and the outcome not really being the point, which is a cool thing to hear someone sort of attest

after their biggest most successful project. Yeah, well, so that's sort of where I was going on the data part of this. Because I do think that in a lot of ways, Charlie was bigger and more universal in culture than Gracie last go-round. To see these numbers from Gracie, relative to Charlie, was a little bit surprising to me, but equally surprising to me is the fact that as we stand here 10-ish days after Gracie released her album,

she does not have a single song, Gracie Abrams, does not have a single song in the Spotify Top 200 right now. And so where I really wanted to go was of... By the way, that's fucked up for Minibar. Dude. Just want to say. Yeah, Minibar would like a word.

Let me say that I'm doing my part. Yeah, it's not because of me. Spotify every morning I wake up. Spotify's like, what the fuck? It's like you and some woman in New York streaming the shit out of this song. Damn straight. Fuck, yeah, we are. It will have its moment in the same way that...

It's so interesting seeing everybody now introducing or interviewing and talking about Audrey Hobart a year after we covered the record. We will be ahead of the bar on that one, I think. But I guess my point is, do you think this Charlie stuff will endure? There's some evidence that the Gracie stuff may not endure. Maybe she'll take it out on tour and we'll see some of the same progression that we've seen from a lot of female songwriter slash pop stars over the last couple years where they put out albums that didn't do great long term on the charts, took them out on the road, and some of the songs started to percolate and take deeper root.

But there's a part of me that I don't think it needs to endure. I think it actually reinforces her artistic credibility. And I don't think that it's about the numbers so much. And I also think that if we actually get a 1975 album at some point in the next six to 12 months, that this will all be connected as part of the cinematic universe and there'll be relevance to it. But I'm curious if you think this thing is going to endure if it's going to be for the cool kids and it's going to be like the Cameron Winter Solo Project or

something. But I think that like I don't think that that's a binary. I mean, let me tell you this, it'll endure for me. I do think that this is more of how I'm feeling now than a brat. But I also think that the people that you're talking about are the people who around, you know, Brat Summer and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, where the people going, well, let me tell you, the real Charlie album is how I'm feeling now. And like, you all should be listening to Party for you. And I, you know, I am one of those people to a degree, although, like, I love Brat. So I think my expectation is that this is a relatively like small feeling out. Yes. And I think... Can you even tour this album? Well, let me tell you. One of the reasons that I think this is successful is by the measure of did I finish the album and immediately Google tour dates?

Check. Yes. Interesting. I would like to be... Like, this album makes me feel like I would very much like to be in a space with people and community that is interested in this. Like that is really, really, really appealing to me. Yeah, but even if it's

500 people crammed into a restaurant that's closed down for a private party with a DJ and the DJ's Charlie. I mean, George under the table. That sounds like a dream. Yeah, but it feels like... But like I will do it at the Barclays Center if I must.

Yeah, it feels like more of a small crowd than a festival crowd to me, but... I think she's doing... I mean, she's doing some festivals and she's doing some arenas. Yeah. And I think, like, I don't know. I think that this,

I found myself excited to hear these songs live when I listened to. Yeah, it sounds like you really like this record. I think that it's deceptively, like, I think the first time that I listened to it, it's very easy to hear everything in that tone of the part of wink wink,

where she's saying, you know, maybe I fucked your dad, just kidding, I'm only saying that for effect. Maybe I fucked your dad. Just kidding. I'm only saying that for a fact. Which is an incredible delivery, an incredible moment.

There's just no one who could do that like Charlie. But I don't, like the singles hadn't totally landed for me as singles. I liked them, but I just didn't, I didn't feel like I totally. really got where it was going. And then listening to this as an album, I felt like I, I had a whole picture, this really satisfying experience of just like, you really know why someone felt compelled to make the thing that they made. And there are, you know, I think she toes the line in a lot of ways where she's almost daring you to be like, hey, Charlie, some of these lyrics are a little

bit repetitive. Sometimes I do think that. Other times I think she could like she has kept some of the incisiveness and writing about relationships in a more substantial way from Brat and brought them to, you know, a song like persona, which I think is really, really cool. And one of the ones that stood out to me. So I, yeah, no, I'm, I'm, I'm into it. I would like to be at the show. Well, yeah, she's going to play major markets. She's going to do a couple of festivals here. And it obviously kind of just, and I saw some of the live performance as she did the promo for the album that seemed cool. I mean, I guess I'll ask you this.

Is this a dance record? Is this a rock record? How do you define the genre? Is the dance floor dead? It's a, it's like a dance rock record. It's a Charlie XX record. It's Charlie X-CX doing a winking facsimile of a certain type of like kind of Strokes-era rock music. Okay.

That's a lot of words, but I think they're accurate. Yeah, I wonder in my own mind how much conceptually the Wuthering Heights soundtrack took out of her from a creativity standpoint. Like I don't think that's a thing that we can just like overlook, not. just because I think dying for you is a really super strong song, and there's a couple of the wall of sound, and there's a couple others that I think are really great from that. But it is, it's going to be hard for me to not think about that as a bridge after Brat. It's an album of music that, yeah, in other words,

this feels like the second album after Brat to me. But. Interesting. Yeah, I guess I think of, I guess I'm starting to think of that of the soundtrack, not that it really matters in a huge way, but almost as like a lifeline where she kind of got to reset. And I agree with you, some of those songs are really strong. But like, there's an unencumberedness to this album relative to Brat that I feel like, probably benefited from having something that kind of counts, kind of doesn't, that let her just kind of shake it off. I mean, for somebody who seems to constantly be asking herself what she

wants to do with her life and whether she wants to make music, she's making and putting out a lot of music. Like, she has not left the public consciousness since 2024. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I think, like, I think there's the line on rock music where she's talking about jumping off the stage and she says, I hope they catch you today, but if they don't, it's okay. And, like, that feels like such a Charlie mission statement to me. Yeah, maybe jump off the same. I hope they catch you today, but if they don't, it's okay. Like, you could get hurt, you could fall in your face or your back or whatever,

and you just have to do it because that's the entire point of all of this. And that's the mindset of someone who is going to do a lot of stuff, right? who is going to be sort of compelled to make things. And that sort of reinvention and creativity, like I think that's what this album's about. We've talked a little bit about the sort of scope in general of the album as a whole. Camera is the song that seems to be leading the way right now

in daily streams, at least. Is there anything here that stands out to you as an individual song that you think may last at least somewhat? Yeah, I'm not super surprised that it's camera. But I sure feel like wink wink has got more catchiness to it. I love wink, wait. I love both songs. Yeah. Yeah.

Camera feels more like a. fully wholly constructed song, whereas wink-wink to me feels like an idea that she built a song around a little bit. And maybe she started with the fuck-your-dad line, but it sure feels like it's the chorus that that was. That's the hook. What do I do with it? Blah.

But it is hooky. It's a classic Charlie hook. I also think wink-wink, you have to get Charlie a, little bit more than with camera. Like camera, she's saying, it's not really a quiet part, but like she is, she's stating things pretty plainly on camera. She is really, you know, it's kind of like how I'm feeling now the song. Like she is telling you exactly what she thinks about all of this and what she feels.

I think there's something kind of cool about that. But it's very sort of on its level. wink wink, you know, is true to its title. I think you have to be a little bit more versed in like the ways in which she's cheeky and her interest in pushing buttons a little bit and what the various discourses have been around her at earlier points in her career for it to like totally sink in. Again, I think that she is, this doesn't feel like an album that is going. that is going to be

meaningful or even really work for people who don't have some amount of familiarity with like Charlie's whole thing. Yeah. So I'm not sure how much that matters, but... Yeah. And that's where like if... I think people are going to be turned off

by the end of rock music. I think they're going to be turned off by the end of no one lasts forever. I think they're going to be freaked out by what the fuck happens in the middle of card decline. Deeding that's on some purpose? Maybe. I'm not listening to know what lasts forever.

There's a two and a half full minutes of the body horror movie guy. telling you that everybody's going to die. It really does. Like, I'll never forget the first time I listened to no one lasts forever. Probably. And she just, it just keeps going. And it keeps going. And you keep thinking she's going to make it stop.

She doesn't. How did they decide to make that two and a half minutes instead of two or three or 16? Like at what point was she like, oh, that's enough? That's the perfect amount of no one lasts forever. I mean, the best I can give you is probably like get to the point where you think we couldn't possibly get away with this and add four more no one lasts forever's. But that is the essence of what I'm a little bit suspicious of here. Because with Charlie, I'm never sure how much of it is a bit. and like a cultural, like, you know, a troll almost.

And there are parts that, like, can she put out an album that is 30 minutes that really only has about 26 minutes of substance, actually less than that, when you take out the repetitive stuff and the, you know, the, like, intermediary stuff that gets lost. Could she, is she sort of leading us towards an album where she's just, I mean, we joke about this all the time, but where she's going to like burp and fart for 40 minutes and see if everybody's like,

it's brilliant. I love it, you know, because she's wafted in all the cool kids into her spell. I think that she likes to nudge against that impulse, for sure. Like, I don't, I'm not 100% sure that some of this isn't intended to be a test for how critical people can be with her.

I don't know. You know, whether she's turned, like, she's got like a Maga cult around her that's going to be like, $2 billion from crypto, amazing. Two and a half minutes of no one lasts forever at the end. This is art. Instead of like, no, no, you stupid fuck,

get out of your own head. Okay, but let me be the colater then for a second. This is silly. Let me be the cold leader. later then for a second. Think about the contrast of that ending of that song, which, don't get me wrong, I will grant you, is unlistenable. But just think about it as a concept. And contrast it to the end of Brat. Contrast it to the end of 365. Never forget on Barack Obama's playlist. Where like...

That album does not exactly go out, like, claiming immortality. But it ends on that song where it's like, keep bumping that, bumping that, bumping that, bumping that, bumping that, keep bumping that, bumping that. Like, which does at least give you the suggestion of, like, I've created something. She's like, put you in this space where it's at least sort of gesturing at the ability through her music, through her art, to kind of transcend a certain type of mortal coil. Maybe that's too much of a read on a song about cocaine. I'll grant you. But I think you can make it. And then on this one, it is all about, like, the fact that making this stuff does not make you, like, does not grant an artist immortality.

Like, maybe there's some art that withstands time, but the people don't. And it's not supposed to be about legacy. it's supposed to be about creation and doing it for how it feels while you do it. And I think that's cool, even if, again, I'm never going to listen to that whole thing. They are dead, they are gone, no one lasts forever, over and over and over again.

Now, the irony of that for me is she has lasted forever for the last two years. But there is a visual in the YouTube thing, at the end where she, you know, the last word is just the they are dead part, and she just sort of like drifts off and falls into darkness. Is that her going away? Is she, is that a metaphor for brat and the era? I don't know, but they're, it, it's still annoying as fuck,

and it distracts from me interpreting this. And I will not have anyone else who's like, I think it's kind of cool. I think it's kind of cool. So glad that this was repeated 28 times. I did. I have in my notes, I wrote Jesus fucking Christ. But I still think it's cool.

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it is the drop down from the B to the G-sharp on the You Make It Easy On me part of the, of magic metal Montana, the song about AG. Great song. Like the, just in that chorus where she, like, it just, that musically got me. Yeah. I mean, I think there's no, like, there's no, there's no question to me, particularly after you hear that song, which I think is really, really beautiful and like, such a sweet declaration of, of both friendship and a collaborator ship of just sort of, you know, no offense

to. Finn Keen, who also worked on all of this with her and AG, but that just seems like such a critical relationship. Yeah. You make it easy for me. I think wink wink is awesome. I really like, yeah. Right.

Now I want to feel that. Yeah. Oh, interesting. I think that the verses and the sort of mainline guitar part of rock music is super cool. I find myself walking around the house. saying singing spring summer but not saying 26, just any other number or any other word, I highly recommend it.

Spring summer 42? Exactly. Spring summer. Exactly. Yes. Yes. Spring summer. Spring summer.

Like interesting words. There you go. Exactly. It's been said all over my house for some reason. And so there is something infectious about that. There were some things that I, look, I thought I'm afraid as a song subject. Is really interesting. And that song in a lot of ways for me has the most depth and is the bravest,

lyrically. I won't listen to it again. It's got the most in common with the first, with house from Wuthering Heights, which you hated. I'm afraid it does? Yeah, a little bit. It's like, it's the most gothic. Yeah, but I'm about, she's been very, like,

it's the cousin to, I think about it all the time. Yeah. I think about it all the time, that I might run out of time, but I finally met my baby, and a baby might be my baby might be my mom. from Brat. And she clarifies it a little bit.

She said George likes it. But like it's a very brave thing to say out loud. Totally. And I think like a real weapon that she has at her disposal that has been hard earned and I think is very true. Is that it is very compelling when like the coolest girl you know who is wearing black eyeliner. and is that, like, when that person just straight up tells you the stuff that eats her up inside, that's really compelling. Like, that's a really can't look away, can't turn an ear kind of thing to be able to put on your album.

I mean, there's been a lot of celebration and PR stuff around her and George, right? They're one of those couples du jour. Totally. And she has, it's been. and very warm and lots of professing of love for one another. And there's the wedding, and there they are at Maddie's wedding and everything. And then you got a song on this album where she says, take the ring.

Take the ring, because what if I ruin it? Like there is this, there's this sense that did you, I mean, a reading of this song is she got married because she's scared. And maybe she'll never find anybody else. Maybe she is so insecure that she won't amount to something. and so just say yes, but maybe she wasn't sure that that's what she wanted from her life. It's a very powerful thing.

I'm a wife. I'm a kid. Like, all these things. Like, that's what you say to your therapist, not to the world. And not when you and your husband have been out almost co-promoting this album. But that's what Charlie does.

And it's what just holds the line on the authenticity. Like, you can bust her balls for some of the silliness. And, yeah, first draftiness of some of this album, that is definitely a word that I just said, look it up. But you can't knock, if you listen to this song, you may never listen to it again, but you'll come away and be like,

well, Charlie just, if nothing else, she's going to speak her truth. Well, it's like there's nothing that you can say about her that she won't say about herself. And I also, I think another read of it is kind of like not, saying I did this because I was scared, but almost also saying, like, I did this because of how badly I want it,

but once you admit how badly you want it, if you're scared that like, there's something in you where you're not, you can't fulfill all the different things you wanna be in the world and in life, like the terror of messing it up or the terror of somehow losing it once you've admitted to yourself and, and, in a marriage to all the people that you know

that that's how you feel about it. I don't know. I think that's also like a very... That was my read on it. I think either way, it's a very arresting song lyrically. I agree with you.

It's not the most listenable one, but I also think that there's, again, something about the Gothic quality. of it that I like as a connection to the Wuthering Heights stuff, but I also just think it matches the tone. I think it's, I want you to tell me more about what you like in, in yeah. I don't want to cut anything, but if I had to cut, that would be my cut. Really?

Yeah. Tell me why. Well, that's, that's the one where, that's the one where lyrically I don't get a ton and I can't really, I don't feel like I can make a straight-faced argument that, oh, it's tongue-in-cheek that she's just saying the same words over and over again. I think it's the creative process. It's like she does not want to have anything to do with this. She does not, like, no, I'm not there.

And then all of a sudden, boom, you're in it. And like how so often you can wake up and you're not feeling it or it's not. But then that magic of creativity happens and everything else gets blocked out and you're channeling the muse. and how capricious and back and forth that can be. That's very cool. I'll go back with that in mind. Try it that way. What would you have cut?

Let me count the ways, Nora. It's an EP if you cut anything. What would I have cut? The last two and a half, 26 of the 27 and a half. You're just so upset about the end of the last song. Correct. 2007 did not do much for me. Yeah, that's low on my impact list as well. I kind of just didn't absorb it that well. Persona is not a song that I'm going to go back to, but I'm really interested to know who it's about.

Oh my God. That might be my favorite song. I love. of persona. Don't fucking choke on your ego and you sing for that you... I also think, like, Charlie is... Charlie, I... Okay, I don't know if this is about a woman. I'm sort of...

I'm assuming that it's about a woman. It sounds like it's about a woman. Taylor Swift. No. No. There's no chance. First of all, this song, like... There's always a chance.

Sure. I take this song to be about someone that she... cares pretty deeply about. Well, how do you know? I don't know. But I... No, but how do you know that she doesn't care about Taylor's deep?

Well, they don't seem to spend much time together. Not anymore, that's for sure. And I think some of the... The writing just strikes me more as something that you would write about someone more immediately in your life. She was asked at one of the listening sessions that she had who it was about and she didn't really answer,

but she said that it could be about a bunch of people because, quote, I'm friends with a lot of narcissistic people, but I guess it's about me too. Well, and she talked in the video version about how a lot of her friends asked if it was about them.

And so she said it's very much like a year-so-vein thing, which is if you think it's about you, it probably is. Yeah, well, and I, I think the balance. But you're into like the musical part of this song? I, yeah, I think it's, I think it's very listenable. I like the melody. I think, like, this is one that I know will wind up on playlists of mine

and that I am already going back to, I think it's a, I find this to be a pretty easy, like, top to bottom listen, but, the songs that I'm picking out are definitely persona, camera, rock music, wink, wink, Magic Metal Montana. Yeah, I mean, we're fairly aligned on this. My case is just that the parts of this album that resonate with me are more one-liners that I'm apt to sing absent-mindedly as I walk into a room or in the shower or like as a goofy

intro in seeing somebody come in the kitchen, then they are entire song structures that I want to play start to back. Like, I love rock music, but at the end of the, uh, like I want to, like, I feel like I'm in an electric chair. And everybody in the room who hasn't heard it and who isn't in on the joke is like, what the fuck is this? There's a scene. There's a scene that I'd forgotten about.

It's not even a scene. It's just like a very small moment in the moment where, she's kind of on they're filming something and she's you know, they're trying to like make her look crazy party girl. And she's basically on one of those like

vibration boards but she's holding a glass of wine and everything is like shaking like that. And that's what that's the image in my mind when I listen to that part. I got one of those in my house. Yeah, it supposedly like frees you up and it drops a bunch of tension and it strengthens you in all kinds of ways.

what it really does is shake the shit out of you. And that's what I want to do when hearing that part of the song. But like, again, the rest of it is great. So there are just these parts, these snips. Like, I want to clip this album. And all the clips I'm a fan of. Can we talk about persona a little bit more, though?

Yeah, tell me. Because I think what's so cool about it is that particularly on first listen, I heard this largely as an angry song, like a song about someone who's a bit of an enemy. And if you really pay attention to it, it's about someone that you really love, but whose inability to be real about how they're actually feeling

is driving you fucking crazy because you don't want to see them in pain. And like, I just, that's a lot to get into a song. I think it's really deftly done. Did you see Ingmar Bergman's Swedish movie called Persona? No, I should. I think it might be inspired by that. That's cool. But who has time?

I don't know. I see movies. Come on. I think my own, my cross to bear in this life is that I have a little bit more brain space to think about the outro to no one lasts forever than I do. Watch the Odyssey? No, I can watch The Odyssey. I don't get what are we talking about here?

I can see movies. Well, I think this song has some relation to that. So from that perspective, perhaps there is a connection to the concept of things. film in persona, but I think mostly it's a like, again, it's a troll for Charlie because everybody wants to know if it's about them. So do you think that this song is not actually about like, like it's just inspired by the movie and? No, I think it's intended to be a glass that you can pour anyone into to fill it. Yeah. But I bet that that is true for her too. right? And that she, you couldn't see her, take someone like Gabriette who like, I know barely

anything about, but you couldn't see a quality of that friendship being one where Charlie's sort of like, you know, we're really good friends, but sometimes I feel like you won't, you won't just like tell me what's going on with you because you have to be so fucking cool all the time and like be a French model. Like that, I could totally see that being a dynamic in any number of relationships that she has. Yeah, but if that's the case, I wonder how much of it is really just self-criticism. Yeah.

Any version of that works for me. But I do think that she, there's something about this that makes me feel like it has a particular salience to friendships between women. And I do think that she, is establishing herself as someone who has a really sharp pen for that particular subject. Agree. Which is like an interesting thing to be saying in 2026 about, you know, I don't care. I love it.

Yeah, fair. Girl's so confusing. Sympathy is a knife. which is not streaming very much at all right now. I thought that song would be streaming way more than it does. There's a ton from Brat that streams more than that. But there's a ton from Brat that doesn't stream that much. Like, how much does Apple even stream?

It streams a lot. I mean, it's still streaming 200,000 a day, but that's, you know... It's been a long time. Apple... I mean, yeah, 360 is like $290,000. And what Brat did, I believe, is I think her catalog in general really got a boost overall in the post-Brat universe. Like, I think there is, even if I maintain that a lot of the people who are newly aware

of Charlie or newly aware of a Charlie X-E-X who's not the girl who had some, radio hits a decade ago, plus ago, a lot of those people are not streaming her, but some of them are, and they're streaming more than just Brat. So I think there has been a rising tide for her there. Apple is basically the third most stream song from Brat. Guests with Billy Ilish is one, 360 is two, overall, like lifetime to date. Apple is three. But it's streaming less right now

than girl's so confusing. It's streaming less than 360. It's streaming less than guests. It's doing, it's streaming less than Von Dutch. Even though year to date or lifetime to date it's stream more. So I

hear you. But yeah, I mean, for perspective, cameras do in like almost a million a day right now, which is, again, it's early and people are listening to it, but that would make it her probably second most streamed song on a daily basis right now. We'll see. I don't, I still have a sense that this is off-grid enough, that it will have its cult following, as you described, but won't pierce through fully. She, as a personality, as a

persona has pierced through and it will do the job of keeping her in the public consciousness. But I think there won't be, I mean, I still think that the, there are probably at least two songs on the Gracie record that will unequivocally stream more than anything on this album, right? Yeah. I really feel like that's not necessarily the point, but I think that's a feature, not a bug. I don't think that Charlie is supposed to be or wants to be or is meant to be that type of artist

and I think the choice to not, I think the worst choice she could have made would have been to try to like top brat to play at the same game and try to exceed it in some way. Yeah, and that's why I'm satisfied with this effort, but it, whatever the opposite of try hard is, that's the way I'd describe this album.

Not lazy, not that she didn't make effort, but it doesn't, it does not appear that she tried very hard. Try hard being a pejorative term, this, I think, was sort of effortless, and it is kind of effortlessly cool. Yeah. In that effort,

and again, I think you have to watch the video to fully process it all, and it makes, makes more sense as a combined piece of media. But, you know, I wonder if it feels, again, like a collection of ideas more so than like a consistent top to bottom purposeful. I think it's purposeful. I think it's thoughtful.

Like, even in the moments when it feels tossed off, it's interesting to try to answer, like, how much I actually think it is. Like, is that an aesthetic choice to make it seem that way? Or is that actually what it is. that actually what it is? Right, right. It's, it's, it is interesting, but like, like, like, dissect card. Go ahead.

Well, dissect card declined as a part of this. Like, there's an entire second song briefly at the end. I keep thinking about you single day. I keep thinking about every single night. It stops in between. It, again, it feels like this loose collection of, ideas, but maybe that's the point. And it's the third song on the album that follows rock music in spring,

summer. I'll tell you, I'll tell you how I felt about that song. I think, and again, like, I do think that having rewatched the moment, I was like really thinking about,

I was sort of in a, in a mindset of, there must have been some times post brat where she was just really over the whole thing. And so I think that, the way that I read it is you get most of the song and it is this quasi-nihialistic portrayal of consumerism and a culture of trying to represent yourself with like things that money can buy and a relationship between that and like the fashion spaces especially that she

has moved in more and more, especially in the last couple of years. And then all of the card declined moments pull the rug out from underneath that and kind of expose it and have it hit this dead end. And then at the end of it, the song does kind of reinvent itself. And it rediscovered something that's a lot more pure. And like, I don't know if it's creativity or if it's love or if it's joy. But like, I think the last part of it sounds great. It's a weird song for sure.

But that's what it gave me. And that doesn't feel tossed off to me. Yeah. Even though some of the, like the musical sketches that come together to make up the song do feel like you're in the studio messing around with them in a way.

Spring, summer, cyclosporiasis. Try it. It works. You know what? I'm trying to ask myself if I think there could have been a different choice of single that would have worked better for me. And now I don't know if those...

Yeah. I don't care about the single situation. I think they saved camera because they knew they had it and so it's the focus track for the album and it went and did its thing. The whole album feels... I mean, there's an urgency,

there's a vibrancy, there's an energy to it for sure. It feels like, and again, we see this in some of the video that's posted around it. Like, it feels like they get in a room and they just vibe and they make and they go. And they don't think very much about it and they put it out and it's done. Like, this is not endless mix after endless mix and recutting. And there's a danger to that. And again, a courageousness to go with what came out. And I don't hate it.

It's just there are moments where it feels like it feels like a draft. But you seem to really like this album, Nora. I really like it. I can't wait to get to the great. Yeah. Like you really are viving on this record. I'm. I really.

Can you play it in the background when your mom walks in? Yeah, my mom's cool. yeah but she'll she'll get this no she won't get it at all my mom's fucking cool I hung out with her mom but my mom would not get this album at all but that's that's what I mean no no events to her but that doesn't that doesn't mean that I can't I like yes I really liked this album when I heard and I liked the singles but I had a little bit of that experience with the singles that you described of being like how much of this is just about kind of edging me a little bit and being like yeah

I'm going to say the dance floor is dead to make a statement and do that. And then I wink wink was my favorite. I just think it's so funny. I think her delivery is so perfect. And then spring summer 26 is probably my least favorite. But I think listening to the whole album didn't get like. So then all of a sudden it clicked for me where I felt like, oh, okay, yes, she's doing some of that. Like she's, she's Charlie XX.

She's going to elbow you in the side a little. bit. Yeah. But it has a much more earnest core to it. Right. And often what I love about her the most is the ability to kind of go between those two poles. So yeah, no, I, look, do you want to, do you have a favorite lyric?

Is it, I might have fucked your dad? I mean, how could it not be? And maybe I fucked your dad. Yeah, no, it's mine too, but I actually think the, my favorite part of that is afterwards when she goes, just kidding, I'm only saying that for a fact. But my point is, I think people can change. But my, right. Just kidding. I'm only saying that for a fact. But my point is, I think people can change. Like, I laugh out loud every time I hear her say that. It, it reminds me of, love it if we made it by the 1975, that line that. It's like saying controversial things just for the hell of it.

That's, there's a lot of that sprinkled through this album. Yeah. Dance Lord is dead. Even the stuff, like the other, um, later when she's like, I used to say scream if you want to go faster, but then I sold my Porsche. Porsche. Yeah. I used to say scream if you want to go faster. But then I sold my Porsche.

It's very funny. Very, very funny. It's a funny person. I respect that. She has a sense of humor. Definitely. I gave it an A-minus. Wow.

I think it's really good. I don't have a lot of faults with it. I feel that I do have to, like, I can't look myself. Are you singing these songs? Some of these things, you were moved by some of this stuff? Yeah. Is this like a zoo exhibit, or is this like a piece of art that's hanging in your group? I'm not like, I'm not moved in the way.

that I don't feel that this album is about, you know... God damn. A minus. Pulling my heart, like, pulling on my heartstrings and having these, like, gut-wrenching reactions to it. I, Nathan, like, this album makes me feel... I don't know. It makes me feel good about the world. It makes me feel, like, I find it very compelling to listen to someone who's just, like, I need to make stuff because that's what it is to me to be alive.

And I love listening to her do it. I do think that I have to- What did you give Olivia's album? I think I also gave it an A-minus. Do you feel that way? Do you feel like these are two albums that are on par with one another? Yeah. I think they're really different.

I think it's a bit of an apples to oranges, but like- It is. It is. I think there's something about, you know, Olivia is for the most part writing about, she's writing about relationships, she's writing about her life. And that is very cool and interesting. I think she does it exceptionally well. I'm interested in hearing people do that.

I am maybe a little bit of a sucker for someone choosing to pivot a little bit away from that and actually write about the act of doing the third. thing, like, of making the stuff and about the creativity in and of itself and her process. But that is really fun to listen to for me. It is emotional in a different way, but it is, it's like buoying. I really felt lifted by this album. I can tell. I mean, I'm thrilled.

I think it may because the Gracie record just depressed you so much. Let me say one thing. I think I like imaginary friend, which I did say on that album that I, when we did that album that I liked that song. I liked that song even a little bit more than I remembered. I liked that song when I was saying I liked that song. Just wanted to say that. But yeah, no, I didn't. I'm not on team imaginary friend.

I had a hard time. Okay. I think that this is an interesting project. me it feels like, like, I don't know how to say this without it being gross. I need a different metaphor than when you're like barfing something up or coughing something out. And like, there's one last like body convulsion that gets it out. Like how to say that in the most positive way. She's gone through this era of unbelievable, unbelievable sound, unbelievable creativity. that has been bountiful in her on-camera work, her audio recording.

And this to me felt like that last little bit that she just had to get out. And as a result, it doesn't feel as substantive to me from front to back. It is an interesting project. But now, this is going to be the absolute wrong metaphor, but it's, just what's in my head and this is a podcast where we do that. The way that some people feel about Evermore or the stuff on the back of Midnights that was released, I feel a little bit about this, which is like, wow, interesting, but it's 30 minutes. It's really only 25 or 22. These are a collection of ideas that in the aggregate, tell me an interesting story. The most interesting

songs from a lyrical content perspective are not moving me melodically and there are lots of interesting hooks but nothing that to me feels like an absolute I go back to every single time

and hammer like I don't have a mini bar on this album to go to bring it full circle I do think there's some really cool hooks on here I appreciate it as a piece of art it just to me feels like the end of a massive creative convulsion that is almost like the tail of of this period.

I'm happy it exists. It doesn't feel quite as cohesive or rich as, you know, what we thought Brat was. And it doesn't feel as intricate to me, even as the Wuthering Heights soundtrack, although I concede there's some stuff on there that I am never listening to again and that I would catapult into the sun house, that's where I came out on this. I feel like you're looking at me with scorn. No, I'm not.

I'm not at all. I think that's... We just talked about moving this podcast to video at some point, and that's the thing I'm most afraid of is what you're going to look like on camera reacting to something I just said. I was not giving you that at all. I was giving you a look of, okay, but what grade does that add up to? It's a B.

Okay, that's fine. Yeah, it's a legitimate piece of art. It just felt a little bit like a stub, a stub, not a full ticket. Yeah, that is certainly a core tension with it, is it's almost fleeting nature by design. Yes. She is a badass, she matters. This is worth having up on the shell. Yeah, I want to go to the concert really.

I'm so into it. I'm so, anyway, you know, it's a funny thing about minibar that I was thinking about while you were saying that? What's that? It's like almost depth. I don't know. I guess it's still early. It has a real chance to be my most played song of this year, even as a late-breaking contender. And it's going to be very funny if one of, if an album that I did not enjoy produces my favorite song of the year.

I know. your Spotify wrapped is going to be like, there's one song that you liked above all others. My Spotify wrapped is going to be like, you love that Gracie Abrams album. Yeah, you must really think, and we got a podcast for you to listen to. Anywho, this has been every single album.

As always, I'm Norr Pinciotti. He's Nathan Hubbard. Thank you to Kai McMullen for producing this episode and to you for listening. We'll talk to you next week.