"Music, Fashion, Film" Review by gagzus

[gagzus 23,134]

After several replays, breaking down my thoughts and also analysing how Charli's new album fits into the zeitgeist, here is my comprehensive review of the album.

Firstly, I want to start off by saying; this will not be a typical track-by-track type of review. The album feels like a fully connected project as a whole and links to a full creative narrative. Primarily the theme of existentialism. The whole album feels very raw and like a stream on consciousness, immediately the album feels very different from her previous album "brat" -- an album that prides itself on taking the things we love about pop music, and turns it up-to an eleven with pure maximalism. "Rock Music" is the first track on the album, whilst most will complain about it's length, it is effective and feels as though it gets its narrative across in the 1:55 time. You know straight away this album is entirely different from what she was doing before, from the "now we're making rock music" statement that is both irony and factual to the rest of the album, Charli's irony and sarcasm in the song -- in all the music actually -- feels like someone beating their critics to the punch, the album is full of influences from The Velvet Underground and Radiohead, especially in Card Declined. Charli also takes huge influences from John Cale's more experimental music as a solo artist.

A lot of the album won't make sense to the typical pop fan. Pop in the modern era teaches it's listeners about being a maximalist. Everything must be louder. Lyrics must be deep and metaphorical, but somehow easy to understand. Pop used to be the genre that indie artists refused to take seriously, now Pop fans have made the genre serious in it's own right. "Music, Fashion, Film" incorporates the best of both worlds, an Indie Sleaze production with Pop lyrical sensibility and turns both on their head. If Pop lyricism must be in your face whilst also trying to seem deep, full of metaphors and spell everything out -- "I'm angry, now I'm sad" or other phrases hidden behind false penmanship -- Charli has stripped away those type of lyrics and instead made the lyrics small and sparse leaving room for interpretation. Production wise, the album has all the elements of indie rock music but instead they're replaced, remixed and chopped into the same way electronic pop music is made. The album is probably the closest Charli has come to the true original ethos and style of "PC Music" from its establishment in the mid 2010s. Songs like "Hey QT" specifically feel like they're in the same vain of the album, instead of bubblegum pop and basslines, "Music, Fashion, Film" feels like what "PC Music" is to pop -- to rock.

The album is less about algorithmically enhanced pop music, instead it feels very textural and visceral. If Maximalist Pop is representative of Summer, and Indie Rock is Winter then "Music, Fashion, Film" is definitely the Autumn. Sitting comfortably between both genres, refusing to take either seriously, but also taking both seriously at the same time. When the pop landscape finally understood who they thought Charli was -- the party girl who's vapid -- with "brat", Charli proves that she can do everything a big popstar can do and still keep her originality. The album almost feels like a band in the nineties, sat in their mum's garage just making music they vibe with and felt, making art for themselves instead of others. "Brat" was made to support the trends, where as "Music, Fashion, Film" was created to defy and set them in equal measure. 

I believe we'll see a big rise in spoken word, indie rock influenced music popping up in mainstream pop after this, from big and small artists alike. Overall the album has the creative freedom of Music, the texture and emotion of Fashion, with the history and technicality of Film. Perfectly combined into one package.

10/10



 

Edited July 25 by gagzus

[LGAte 810]

Charli fans are becoming like Nicki fans fr.

I like Charli XCX but acting like this was some 10/10 album is embarassing. I feel like people should start giving stars to the reviews themselves, and your review is exaggerated and filling in a lot of blanks that don’t exist on the album. 
 

the album: 6/10

your review of the album: 2/10

 

Stop trying to lie and gas up artists because the era of trying to initially gas up an album (that might legitimately just be meh) to keep your artist in favorability in pop culture is tired. 
 

artists put out meh albums sometimes. It’s not a 10/10. 

[gagzus 23,134]

12 minutes ago, LGAte said:

Charli fans are becoming like Nicki fans fr.

I like Charli XCX but acting like this was some 10/10 album is embarassing. I feel like people should start giving stars to the reviews themselves, and your review is exaggerated and filling in a lot of blanks that don’t exist on the album. 
 

the album: 6/10

your review of the album: 2/10

 

Stop trying to lie and gas up artists because the era of trying to initially gas up an album (that might legitimately just be meh) to keep your artist in favorability in pop culture is tired. 
 

artists put out meh albums sometimes. It’s not a 10/10. 

I would like to say that i'm not trying to lie or gas anything up, I consistently am impartial with everyone even Gaga on this site. 

Also when you're observing art there's no such thing as a lie, only perception. You can dislike an album and I can love it and that's fine. 

I will say though that by saying "and your review is exaggerated and filling in a lot of blanks that don’t exist on the album. " you're proving the exact point I made in the review about why people might not like the album.

Pop fans increasingly require exposition and answers to everything in music. I see this album more like how an author writes a book, the environment around the characters and their actions means as much as the words they say. You might not agree and need the exposition or a certain sound and that's fine we're two different people. 

[Mars 2,658]

Soncically it just really doesnt interest me. Theres not much there to grip onto or go deeper into. It doesnt matter how you spin it or what concept is attached - its the music that matters at the end of the day. 

[MountainMonster 2,716]

I think only Wink Wink is enjoyable. But glad you enjoy it. 

[Bronco 25,129]

I don't think its as bad as the haters want even hardcore Charli haters like me to think it is.

But, I don't agree with it being a 10/10 revolutionary album that artists are going to reference moving forward. 

Its a 7/10. Its an okay album. Its not sonically ground breaking and honestly, most of its pretenses to artistry rely on believing Charli isn't a performative fraud.

[Ladle Ghoulash 52,979]

47 minutes ago, LGAte said:

Charli fans are becoming like Nicki fans fr.

I like Charli XCX but acting like this was some 10/10 album is embarassing. I feel like people should start giving stars to the reviews themselves, and your review is exaggerated and filling in a lot of blanks that don’t exist on the album. 
 

the album: 6/10

your review of the album: 2/10

 

Stop trying to lie and gas up artists because the era of trying to initially gas up an album (that might legitimately just be meh) to keep your artist in favorability in pop culture is tired. 
 

artists put out meh albums sometimes. It’s not a 10/10. 

Your review of this review: -100/10

 

Genuinely the height of irony when you regularly come on here and post pompous BS and yet you decide to come sideways at someone else expressing admiration for something they think is aesthetically or culturally significant (a take that isn’t inconsistent with critical consensus, btw). Loaded with uncharitable and condescending assumptions that add nothing to the conversation. Probably could’ve (and, frankly, should’ve) kept this to yourself. 

Edited July 25 by Ladle Ghoulash

[gagzus 23,134]

6 minutes ago, Bronco said:

I don't think its as bad as the haters want even hardcore Charli haters like me to think it is.

But, I don't agree with it being a 10/10 revolutionary album that artists are going to reference moving forward. 

Its a 7/10. Its an okay album. Its not sonically ground breaking and honestly, most of its pretenses to artistry rely on believing Charli isn't a performative fraud.

i don't think it's revolutionary, I think of it how I think of The Fame. It can become an unintentional blueprint for a time period. I thought since last year things like spoken word for instance would come back, and both Madonna and Charli have been doing it. So I see it becoming a trend, I don't think it's NEW in the sense of brand new overall, hence why I said it reminds me of TVU or Radiohead. But for the pop space it feels new.

[gagzus 23,134]

19 minutes ago, Mars said:

Soncically it just really doesnt interest me. Theres not much there to grip onto or go deeper into. It doesnt matter how you spin it or what concept is attached - its the music that matters at the end of the day. 

And that's a valid interpretation, thanks for not putting my interpretation down too.

I feel that the music does matter, hence why I think  how the production and the lyrics work/feel as oppositions of what they are placed as in the mix. Lyrics being pop and indie rock production, but subverting the "requirements" of those components. Instead of the lyrics being expositional like pop is, they become interpretative, and the beats are structured more like an Electropop song using analogue instruments instead, but also analogue instruments recreated electronically.

But as you said, sonically it doesn't interest you, that's as valid too.

[Ladle Ghoulash 52,979]

1 hour ago, Mars said:

its the music that matters at the end of the day. 

I get where you’re coming from, but I think that that kind of assumes music has one functional role/mode, as opposed to being an expressive medium that can be shaped in any number of different ways and serve different functions. To me, listening to the album felt like reading through a semi-confessional collection of poetry or watching a short film, which I think is a valid mode for music to exist in. I don’t think any album necessarily needs one stand out, standalone song in order to be great in the same way I don’t think a movie or a book needs to have a specific scene or passage that you’d rewatch alone because, functionally, that’s just not really how they’re designed.
 

I know I’m being kind of pedantic, but  I think it’s interesting how often we evaluate music (particularly pop or pop adjacent music) primarily by whether it produces enjoyable/digestible standalone songs, when I think albums can also function more like unified works closer to films, novels, or collections of poetry, as well as having aesthetic aims beyond being pleasant or catchy. That doesn’t mean that the music doesn’t matter, I think it just changes the evaluative criteria to not merely is this “pleasing to the ear” or is this a “hit” or a “song I’d put on a playlist,” but rather: do I think this piece of music is effective at expressing or conveying what it seems to be aiming for and, from that POV, do I enjoy it or not? 

More broadly, I also find the reductionism of the need for music to be pleasant or immediately enjoyable frustrating, but that’s a lecture for another day lmao

Edited July 25 by Ladle Ghoulash

[ALonelyNight 237]

1 hour ago, LGAte said:

Stop trying to lie

Music's artistic quality is subjective, and it's not like this is an album where practically everyone agrees it's awful. How can you confidently make the argument that it's "objectively" a 6/10, or average?

Your comment is very mean spirited

[gagzus 23,134]

21 minutes ago, Ladle Ghoulash said:

I get where you’re coming from, but I think that that kind of assumes music has one functional role/mode, as opposed to being an expressive medium that can be shaped in any number of different ways and serve different functions. To me, listening to the album felt like reading through a semi-confessional collection of poetry or watching a short film, which I think is a valid mode for music to exist in. I don’t think any album necessarily needs one stand out song standalone song in order to be great in the same way I don’t think a movie or a book needs to have a specific scene or passage that you’d rewatch alone because that’s just not really how they’re designed.
 

I know I’m being kind of pedantic, but  I think it’s interesting how often we evaluate music (particularly pop or pop adjacent music) primarily by whether it produces enjoyable/digestible standalone songs, when I think albums can also function more like unified works closer to films, novels, or collections of poetry, as well as having aesthetic aims beyond being pleasant or catchy. That doesn’t mean that the music doesn’t matter, I think it just changes the evaluative criteria to not merely is this “pleasing to the ear” or is this a “hit” or a “song I’d put on a playlist,” but rather: do I think this piece of music is effective at expressing or conveying what it seems to be aiming for and, from that POV, do I enjoy it or not? 

More broadly, I also find the reductionism of the need for music to be pleasant or immediately enjoyable frustrating, but that’s a lecture for another day lmao

I agree with you in this one, I think it’s the death of nuance too. Primarily because of internet culture specifically where things like ending explained videos for movies or clickbait videos — claiming to tell you the “real” truth behind a song or a book’s meaning — exist. People act like perspective nowadays is abject truth. 

We look to outsiders for reasoning and something marketed to us as “right”. Even critics aren't “right” they’re just telling your their perspective.

[Ladle Ghoulash 52,979]

26 minutes ago, gagzus said:

I agree with you in this one, I think it’s the death of nuance too. Primarily because of internet culture specifically where things like ending explained videos for movies or clickbait videos — claiming to tell you the “real” truth behind a song or a book’s meaning — exist. People act like perspective nowadays is abject truth. 

We look to outsiders for reasoning and something marketed to us as “right”. Even critics aren't “right” they’re just telling your their perspective.

Absolutely. I think people have kind of abandoned a lot of art, but music in particular, as being interpretive. I definitely understand the fatigue with artists and fans alike insisting that “lore” supersedes individual experience with music, but being skeptical of that doesn’t mean we should wholesale dismiss reading + interpreting symbols, references, and context within music and its performance. Unfortunately it’s in part due to bad faith weaponization of “you just don’t like it that you don’t get it” that has given some folks cover to run with “I didn’t even try to understand it, but I don’t like it and any attempt to interpret or justify it is someone trying to shove it down my throat.”

I think it’s also become this attitude that if something isn’t immediately accessible (ie requires some interpretation), it’s the artist’s fault/failure to make it accessible and any attempt to legitimize its inaccessibility is “simping” and/or trying to justify liking something “bad.” I’ll be the first to call out needless obscurity or reliance on style or context over substance, but the fact that some artists and fans invoke that excuse in bad faith to justify subpar work has become, as you said, an excuse for wholesale dismissal of interpretation and nuance. It’s really exhausting lmao 

As an aside: Without the semiotic process, I’d imagine many of us wouldn’t have the same relationship with Gaga’s work that we do. Fans on here regularly interpret Gaga’s music through the intersecting lenses of fashion, stage performance, theatrical narrative, her references to pop culture and art more broadly, and autobiography context as a way of deepening and enriching their relationship to her work, yet they roll their eyes incredulously if you attempt to assign the same level of interpretive interest and intentionality to the work of other artists lol

Edited July 25 by Ladle Ghoulash

[gagzus 23,134]

13 minutes ago, Ladle Ghoulash said:

Absolutely. I think people have kind of abandoned a lot of art, but music in particular, as being interpretive. I definitely understand the fatigue with artists and fans alike insisting that “lore” supersedes individual experience with music, but being skeptical of that doesn’t mean we should wholesale dismiss reading + interpreting symbols, references, and context within music and its performance. I mean, hell, without that semiotic process, I’d imagine many of us wouldn’t have the same relationship with Gaga’s work that we do, but it’s, at least in part, due to bad faith weaponization of “you just don’t like it that you don’t get it” that has given some folks cover to run with “I didn’t even try to understand it, but I don’t like it and any attempt to interpret or justify it is someone trying to shove it down my throat.”

Oh absolutely, I always say to people who ask me why I love Gaga in person it’s that her music seems to always link up to the time in my life it is released. But that’s once again down to my personal lore and interpretation of the work.

One artist I wonder about is Taylor Swift, someone whose entire career seems to hinge on her lore. How will she go forward in her career now she’s essentially stopped the source of that lore by marrying someone? When her music arguably revolves around her having many and varied relationships, with her fans interpretations or the mysticism “factual” lore around who they’re about. Now they’re always going to have a concrete answer; her husband. So does that work better for her music or does it take a part of what some find great about it away?

Art works best when perspective is allowed to remain open I think. And it makes it live longer.

[Kayioshka 3,324]

2 hours ago, LGAte said:

Charli fans are becoming like Nicki fans fr.

I like Charli XCX but acting like this was some 10/10 album is embarassing. I feel like people should start giving stars to the reviews themselves, and your review is exaggerated and filling in a lot of blanks that don’t exist on the album. 
 

the album: 6/10

your review of the album: 2/10

 

Stop trying to lie and gas up artists because the era of trying to initially gas up an album (that might legitimately just be meh) to keep your artist in favorability in pop culture is tired. 
 

artists put out meh albums sometimes. It’s not a 10/10. 

Eh but everyone have their tastes.

Rating an album means that we have all our standards and weird subjectivities. It can be objective on some point... But one ultimate rate is impossible without the feeling factor. And our affects are not the sames.

All things are made a different sub-layers of meaning. Meanings that you find. Art is a mystical gate into our inner selves. It’s about discovering ourselves. It’s not cold, it’s about feeling + logical mind + spiritual mind.

If someone's critic is honest and well articulated on certain points... Then it’s a valid critic. All artistic critics are valid imo, even the most biased ones.

I know ppl of tastes for whom Born This Way is a 1/10... But it doesn’t make them untasteful ppl. They might like other specific genres or type of singing.

Gaga is my fav artist, not fav singer. I don’t have a fav singer considering the facts that there are so many diverse and adapted voices to certain singing... I'll might found one day a fav singer idk. But Gaga's mythology, her voice and her musics speaks to me as if her career was a 10/10.

Btw talking about fanbases is irrelevant. When you give a 10/10 it’s because of one's person obsessions and passions... Not just about one's fanbase influence.

Gagzus articles are cool.

Edited July 25 by Kayioshka