Premature Evaluation: Charli XCX Music, Fashion, Film

The other day, I watched Crash for the first time. Even though I’m a fan of director David Cronenberg, the king of body horror/awe and sexual fantasy, for years I mistook his Crash for the 2004 thriller of the same name that I had to watch in high school to discuss the complexities of racial tension. Cronenberg’s Crash is not about racial tension. It’s about people fetishizing death and getting turned on by car crashes. It’s a remarkable film.There’s a scene in which the unnerving voyeur Vaughan, played by Elias Koteas, reenacts the fatal car crash of James Dean as if he’s hosting a DIY show. After replicating the crash, Vaughan drags his body out of a crumpled Porsche, closing with the line “James Dean died of a broken neck and became immortal.” Post-show, he worries if it was too “glib.” It isn’t — it captures the paradox of art and death and legacy. It’s also an important puzzle piece of Music, Fashion, Film. Reductively put, Charli XCX’s seventh studio album (outside of mixtapes, soundtracks, etc.) meticulously connects all the passions that have transformed her into the pop culture visionary she is today. Music, Fashion, Film might not be as taboo as Cronenberg’s Crash, but as...