flâneur

Charli XCX and the Strokes Are (Sort of) Making Rock Music | The New Yorker

newyorker.com · 1,626 words · saved by 1 readers

On their new albums, Charli XCX and the Strokes flirt with the idea of “rock music.” But it seems more like they’re inhabiting the machine than like they’re raging against it.

Last week, Charli XCX and the Strokes, twin pillars of a certain strain of disaffected, irony-drenched cool, each released new records that flirt with the idea of “rock music.” In both cases, the deliberate garbling of genre feels like a pointed disavowal: rock music, in particular, has long been preoccupied with notions of authenticity and defiance. In the case of Charli XCX, the smart and funny hyperpop singer whose sixth album, “BRAT,” became a multidimensional cultural phenomenon in 2024, she seems to be attempting to shake off an overdetermined, übercommodified version of herself. On…

saved by

related reading