How Everyone Will React to the New Charli XCX Album

In a special bonus edition of our RATED AND SLATED column, we bring you all of these predictable opinions so that you can mute the relevant keywords and enjoy your weekend in peace.

Haters

If only there were a maxim that could help us predict how the haters are gonna react to this. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Tabloid perverts

In an age of post-structural pop-music critique, esoteric stan culture “lore drops,” interminable idpol feuding, and hype interviews with Swiss art historians, there’s something vaguely comforting about the headline: “Charli XCX nearly bursts out of satin blue shirt as she films sexy music video.” We are very much beyond the veil when it comes to British tabloid smut, which has long since ceased to fulfil any kind of erotic purpose, primarily serving to hark back these days to a fading Albion of Carry On, and village greens, and dads falling asleep on sofas after Sunday roasts. The current dearth of pop stars who mean at least something to just about everybody renders every Sun headline about Charli XCX a transmission from a lost world, albeit one we needn’t feel too guilty about leaving in the rear view.

Drug dealers

AI-generated WhatsApp menus offering convoluted special bundle deals on grams of “Music” (MDMA), “Fashion” (semaglutide), and “Film” (shrooms). Then giving up because it’s too techy and just slashing $10 off the price of “Charli” till Monday.

Anyone desperately trying to live through a third Brat Summer

Ignoring its existence, whacking on some glitter, and heading out to some ticketed bongo house / indie sleaze / tech house event in Hackney Wick / Bushwick / the part of their city where it’s eternally “Brat Summer” in a T-shirt that says “FERAL” on it, drinking too much wine, then crying.

Your dad

He won’t have any reaction to the Charli XCX album, but will have plenty to say about the “Charli XXX” album, the “Charli CXX” album, and the “Charli SEXYSEX” albums, all of which are also being released this weekend, but only to men over the age of 55.

Uber drivers

Pretending not to have an AUX cable or BlueTooth in 30-minute bursts for eight to ten hours straight.

David Cronenberg fans

“The best thing since CRASH,” they tweet, cranking it up as they adjust their steel braces and fishnet stockings for the last time and the Lincoln convertible aquaplanes into the silver Mazda like a steel fist, leaving behind a twisted wreckage dripping with engine oil and semen. Each to their own I guess.

Anthony Fantano

Marking it lower than The Strokes because sadly they mentioned him in the lyrics.

Madonna

If she’s willing to gyrate on a desk for Gymskin’s clout, imagine how hard she’ll be grafting to get within an inch of Charli XCX this weekend.

The queue at Berghain

Trying to pretend the Australians behind them haven’t been talking about it for two hours.

That Twitter fashion guy

You might not give a fuck what he has to say about fashion, but now you can also not give a fuck what he has to say about music and film.

Peppa Pig

Sequestered away at a safe house in a secret location, Peppa lets herself believe for a moment that perhaps the danger has finally passed. But as the opening strains of “Rock Music” drift in from a neighboring apartment, the flashbacks start again and, though the smell of bacon may just be an olfactory hallucination, she’s convinced it’s a grim portent of what’s to come.

Pitchfork

I don’t know, I’ve not subscribed so I can’t see the album scores anymore. Everyone is gonna get worked up either way, while angrily insisting that Pitchfork is no longer relevant. Any spike in signups will, of course, [subscribe to VICE to reveal the punchline].

Models

You’ve just linked with the organizers of Baku Fashion Week on Instagram, so what better way to celebrate than to get the CD case out and huff a line off Marc Jacobs.

Moe Tucker

Somewhere in the Deep South, the beating heart of the Velvet Underground stands quietly beside an upturned bass drum, waiting for Charli XCX to call. She’s seen her old bandmate John Cale on the cover of Music, Fashion, Film and now she’s got a few ideas: replace all those 808s with minimal metronomic mallet strikes; swap the auto-tuned sass for the bruised little girl delivery of “After Hours”; and you need to have nothing more to do with those goddamn Democrats.

Kamala Harris

Is suddenly feeling far more optimistic about the 2028 presidential elections. Kamala would be in the White House right now, if only she’d been a little bit more brat. But now she’s getting the old gang back together for one more Twitter post—she’ll be standing in a black and white kitchen next to Crooked Hillary and Sleepy Joe. That’s right, just one more Charli XCX meme and the swing states are sure to turn blue.

VICE’s Instagram commenters

I remember when you guys used to hang out with drug warlords in South America. Now you’re talking about something other than that. Unfollowing!

Gabriel Smith

Shares another “email” from Charli in which she explains how, after finally reading his novel Brat, “I want to call my next album Music, Fashion, Film because of your sample-driven prose, funny scene with a woman wearing purple to a funeral, and because it would make a cool movie.” Radio 1 get taken in yet again.

The Guardian

Using it to put down the nascent specter of “BuzzBallism.”

Nick Fuentes

Is enjoying the record with a group of muscular, shirtless, well-oiled young men who typify the strength and vigor of the white race, while working himself up to finally losing his virginity.

Greg Araki

Gets inspired to direct a movie about the above.

The cast of SNL UK

If you’re reading this, we feel slightly sorry about shitting on you guys. You actually did an alright job.

Andy Burnham

“I usually only listen to The Smiths, but I’ve checked out the new album and I’m quite into it, my favorite song is the one that sounds like The Smiths, but if I had one criticism it might be that it’s not enough like The Smiths, and did I mention that I’m into The Smiths. Now, ahead of her next record I’ll be relocating Charli XCX to the north of England.”