Charli XCX clarifies controversial dancefloor lyric: “My personal experience”
Charli XCX has clarified what exactly she meant when she declared that the “dance floor is dead” on her recent single, ‘Rock Music’.
The star, who shot to new heights with the release of her 2024 album Brat, is currently in the rollout for her next full-length solo album, titled Music, Fashion, Film.
Within the divisive first single, titled ‘Rock Music’, the singer-songwriter declares on the chorus, “I think the dancefloor is dead, so now we’re making rock music.”
The lyric leaked via an official interview before the song’s release, with British Vogue describing the project as a “rock reinvention”. The overriding narrative about the project asserted itself in these terms.
However, in a new interview with Rolling Stone, Charli hit back at these claims, stating that she “never said” she was making a rock album.
She shared, “Obviously, I know that there’s been a lot of conversation around me making a rock album, which is something that I never said. But to be honest, I’ve never thought about genre in a binary way.”
As for the specific lyric of her declaring the dancefloor “dead”, the 34-year-old explained, “That lyric is very much about my relationship with Brat, and my personal experience with that album.”
Charli recently married George Daniels, the drummer from indie band The 1975 who also runs his own dance label. With this in mind, she added, “My husband runs a dance-music label.”
Charli went on, “There’s been such a wealth of incredible dance/electronic-adjacent records that have been coming out recently, whether it’s Slayyyter or Underscores or PinkPantheress. Dance music is in an incredible place.”
Elsewhere in the interview, the global pop star admitted that “I’m in the worst place mentally that I’ve been in my life”.
Charli’s new album is set for release on July 24th. From there, she will have a period of rest before her North American tour kicks off in September.
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