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

Calling all music lovers, fashionistas, and film buffs: Charlie 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 subject always came first in our book. Well, our 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 go ‘we’ instead of ‘me’. It makes the magazine look a whole lot bigger and busier, as if loads of music critics, fashion stylists and art afficionados running the shop. People that look like the people in the front row of the fashion show in Charli’s clever-as-heck video clip for the song SS26. Which happens to feature on her new album…

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 F-ed-up world; fashion is fun and can be absolutely fabulous; 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) on all those nifty new streaming channels (all 10,756 of them globally – I made that figure up because I can because the amount of entertainment channels we hoave now is actually stupid). Anyway, the real album art has got to look better than this zoomed in, pixellated, but beatifully, elegantly fonted detail of a magazine cover featuring…

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…

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…

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 soley 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. If there’s irony and guitar in more of the tracks (FYI, love Rock Music). 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 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…

We had to redact the dirty pedo’s name, in retrospect it doesn’t sit well between Kylie and Catatonia.

So, here we are in the year 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 reptitive and relentless. Otherwise, all the influences are out there – you’ve just to pick and choose your references, 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

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

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

Everything Everywhere All at Once: Why Madonna’s Fitbit stats must be off the charts, and will the oversaturation for new album ‘Confessions II’ pay off?