Charli XCX is figuring out what happens after you win

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Set us as preferred What’s the opposite of a victory lap?One answer arrived this year in the form of “Music, Fashion, Film,” Charli XCX’s bracing follow-up to 2024’s Grammy-winning “Brat.” An emotionally complicated dance-pop album about the relationship between power and vulnerability, “Brat” struck a nerve in a weird cultural moment and finally brought Charli the kind of stardom she’d been openly seeking for ages.In the LP’s immediate aftermath, the English musician hungrily scooped up the spoils of her success — playing Coachella’s main stage, starring in a highbrow mockumentary, soundtracking Hollywood’s latest take on “Wuthering Heights.”Yet “Music, Fashion, Film” wonders what it all meant.

It’s a digitally enhanced rock record — probably 2026’s best thing-with-guitar — that cycles through thoughts on ambition and trend-chasing before landing with a moving sense of serenity on the idea that everybody dies and takes their accomplishments with them.“No One Lasts Forever” is the album’s final track, and Sunday night that was also Charli’s closer at Inglewood’s Kia Forum, where she headlined the second of two shows over the weekend.Structurally, the concert bookended songs from “Brat” (for which she was accompanied by prerecorded tracks) with stuff from “Music, Fashion, Film” (for which a scuzzy live band backed her up).There were stray oldies too, including “Constant Repeat,” which she introduced as one of the first songs she wrote about her husband, George Daniel — “even though it’s not exactly truthful,” she added — and the landmark hyperpop cut “Vroom Vroom.”She also did “House,” a spooky goth-folk song from “Wuthering Heights” that had her writhing on the stage in the white-hot heat of a single spotlight — a sex kitten turned screa...