Charli XCX set to cover a lot of ground on her new album, and with the Triple-A access she’s had to all the cool parties, we just know the cameos and references on this one are going to be masssssssive

By creammagazine, July 8, 2026

Mo Charli (pleeeease): One of most in-demand and intertextually referenced pop stars of the moment is Charli XCX, whose new album is set for release July 24 and features some fabulous cameos including David Cronenberg (in song, or perhaps spoken word) and a few other reputable gents, at least in the cover art.

Calling all music lovers, fashionistas, and film buffs: Charli XCX’s new album is almost out and it’s called…

That’s not the cover art (although one might consider it a step-up in graphiques from brat‘s skinny Arial-afflicted title). No, the cover art of Charli’s new album is way spunkier. We’ll get to that. We just thought we’d lift the bottom left corner of one of the ol’ collector editions of Cream, because those three subjects always come first in our ~~book~~ magazine. And when I say our, I’m meaning it like the old queen Elizabeth (may she rest in peace in the windy moors of Heaven shooting elk and the like), this queen often likes to write ‘we’ instead of ‘me’. It makes the magazine look a whole lot bigger, busier and relevant, as if loads of music critics, fashion stylists, and art aficionados are running the shop. People that look like the people in the front row of the fashion show in Charli’s clever-as-heck clip for her song SS26. A song that happens to feature on her new album called…

That’s not the artwork either, just some more fun cut’n’pastiche. And we/I do love a bit of cut’n’pastiche. There, I’ve said it twice and I hope the term flows into the mainstream because it’s half cool / half critical / all very now. Why not mix things up, I say to Charli’s clever album title. The bottom line is: music is necessary – especially as escape from a sometimes fucked-up world; fashion is fun but Temu and Shein are making it look really bad; and film is dying in the arse in the cinemas but sure as hell unpredictable (and dark and spooky and fantastical and drug-inflected and then sobre again) but generally great on all those nifty new streaming channels (all 10,756 of them globally – I made that figure up because I can and because the amount of entertainment channels we have now is actually stupid). Anyway, the real album art has got to look better than this zoomed in, pixellated, but beautifully, elegantly fonted detail of a magazine cover. And that album is called…

But enough about aesthetics, they’re easy to discard on a whim; what really sticks in the minds of the good people of The Culture is quality… And ~~let’s hope~~ I’m sure there’s more quality on Charli’s new LP which is called…

Woah, what happend there? What’s that? That looks rude. Zoom out and you’ll find it’s a wee young Britney Spears photographed for the cover of Cream back when you might have been a toddler. She certainly doesn’t look much out of high school herself. That was a pretty cover that, a fresh-faced, new-to-the-scene Britney photographed by my New York mate Mike Ruiz, totally in school girl attire because it tied in nicely with the …Baby One More Time video. Inadvertently, it probably roped in a few pedophile readers but we don’t want those. The dirty fucking bastards. They should be shot. There, I said it. Speaking of violence, I’m hoping there’s not too much of the gratuitous stuff in Charli’s new videos for single after single that are sure to be lifted off her new album called…

I love the black boot in this one. It’s giving me Ramones vibes but with a classic ballet feel with those flowy laces. The boot belongs to Kylie who looked fantastic on this cover – an issue dedicated solely to film. Cream had the artist straddling a couple of big film equipment crates. Like she was both director and lead actor of a movie being made. A flick with plenty of fab…

Steady on, there’s a lot of detail in that detail shot. Too much white on the left of it. It’s looking like a Scritti Politti record cover. Provisions. Good album that. Daft cover but. And speaking of good albums, we/I are guessing that Charli XCX’s new one is going to be frigging excellent. It might even be epic – even at 30 minutes. If there’s irony and guitar and good chopped-up keys in more of the tracks (FYI, love Rock Music) I’m a happy chappy and the world will be a better place to live and party in. Heck, if six strings are good enough for Chemical Brothers to have injected into some of their greatest songs, they should be used more to counteract the same ol’, same ol’ tinny sounds choking the charts today. So, what do we/I think we’ll be hearing on…

I am hoping for loads of clever references to aspects of all three of those bastions of pop culture. I’m wanting disses to the dumb bitches on the scene, shout-outs to the cooler ones (Julia is still out, isn’t she, so please don’t include her). Chloë again, I hope. Please, please more Chloë. I still listen to her spoken word over Soulwax’s Heaven Scent practically on a daily basis. It’s meditative, you know. On the fashion front for the new album, titled…

I’m hoping for lots of references to the faux pas of the industry, because it really can be a schmozzle when you’re at the right after-show party and something goes drastically wrong. Once, I was at an ARIA awards afterparty sponsored by some fashion label in Sydney and as my photographer and I were going up the steps to next level, we caught darling frontwoman of The Divinyls’ Chrissy Amphlett drunk and curled up in a corner of the stairwell, pushing her hand out to the air as if she were swatting paparazzi away. The odd thing was there was nobody in front of her. Maybe it was a mosquito. Funnily enough, paparazzi is the Italian word for mosquitoes. In one of the dialects, anyway. But that was wonderful Chrissy for you (may the rock goddess rest in peace). So, yes, fashion faux pas (preferably italicised) and some juicy goss, please. Tidbits of info, spilling the beans on what a dirty, dirty industry it is. And for film – well, if there aren’t enough references on the new Charli album to satisfy me, I’m just going to take tracks and sample the best quotes out of classic films and make new versions of the songs. Because, like Charli, I love to mix up…

So, that’s what I’d like to hear on the new album, but the kids might like something else. I do know for sure Charli’s gotten better taste and an ever-changing style in all three areas of…

Re: the cropped detail above, we chose to redact the dirty prick’s name for obvious reasons; it just doesn’t sit well between Kylie and Catatonia.

So, here we are in the second half of 2026 where art and inspiration are everywhere, all around us, at the touch of an app on our mobile phone, at the click of a mouse at our desktop computers, on cable, commercial and stream TV, not so much in the clubs because at time of writing the music there was rather relentless and repetetetetitive. Otherwise, all the influences are out there – you’ve just to pick and choose your preferences, cut and paste if you will, the right ones; make supercuts and supermashes that end up being uniquely you. It’s a mixed-up, muddled-up, shook-up world, Baby, so make sure you make the most of all the best there is of…

Now that’s a cool record cover. Three iconic dudes who are hopefully helping to put the Arts back on the right tracks. Pictured left to right, John Cale, Marc Jacobs, and Martin Scorcese on the cover of Charli XCX’s seventh studio album, Music, Fashion, Film. Welcome the new artistic renaissance. But they’re not new, I hear you say. Oh yes, but the masters will help steer us in the right direction.

Antonino Tati

PS: The good boss forced me to do a couple of strike-throughs.

‘Music, Fashion, Film’ is scheduled for release July 24, 2026.

Here’s the (official, I think) tracklisting for the album:

Came across this track online. Like, so bizarre that the artist has considered it an actual song, lol. Still, we find the white noise quite soothing…

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