Now that the dance floor is dead, Charli XCX has her sights set on guitars – or at least she’s game to kick her high heels into them. The pop star has returned with her new song “Rock Music,” which features some seriously crunchy guitars but still squarely fits in the pop lineage she’s been building on over the years. It arrives alongside a music video directed by Aidan Zamiri, who also directed the video for her “Guess” remix video with Billie Eilish. Check it out below.

Last month, in a cover story with British Vogue, Charli XCX confirmed that her proper follow-up to 2024’s Brat is coming soon. She revealed that she’s “making rock music” and her upcoming album features more guitars and less Auto-Tune vocals. “We were doing our version of analogue, which is so silly and funny,” she said. Brat producers A.G. Cook and Finn Keane, formerly known as Easyfun, stood in for those recording sessions in Paris.

In February, Charli XCX shared her companion album for Emerald Fennell’s film adaptation of Wuthering Heights, which featured guest contributions from John Cale and Sky Ferreira, the latter of whom claimed all was not as it seemed. Meanwhile, Charli XCX has been spending a ton of time in film studios as the star of numerous movies, including Daniel Goldhaber’s Faces of Death remake, Gregg Araki’s forthcoming I Want Your Sex, and her mockumentary The Moment.

Read about Brat at No. 7 in The 100 Best Albums of the 2020s So Far.