Not content with having Martin Scorsese – as well as John Cale and Marc Jacobs – on the cover of ‘Music, Fashion, Film’, Charli xcx now directs Vincent Cassel in the video clip for ‘Camera’, the fourth preview of the album that comes out this Friday.
‘Camera’ is another rock micro single from this album that won’t be rock at all. A glitch guitar sample, a rock beat and a deliberately repetitive chorus sustain 2 and a half minutes of song that are not short and engaging. It’s not better than ‘Wink Wink’ or ‘SS26’ or as transgressive as ‘Rock Music’, but it convinces as a fourth single faithful to the vintage rock philosophy of this era.
Charli’s recent forays into film inspire a song in which she fantasizes about leaving the studio for filming “at 34.” ‘Camera’ is another of those compositions in which the British artist turns her own scratches into pop material: here she comes to consider “throwing her life overboard” to live new and dangerous experiences like those offered by the film camera.
The underlying message is that music has become a kind of prison for Charli, especially on an emotional and psychological level. Perhaps the phrase that best summarizes the topic is “I don’t feel embarrassed even if I suck.” In other passages, Charli suggests that cinema allows her to get closer to her true self, precisely because it offers her the possibility of failing without fear (“Daring to fail and being ugly”). Ironically, brutal honesty remains his trademark.
In the last year, Charli has filmed her own film, ‘The Moment’, and has become a regular presence in Hollywood thanks to roles in ‘Erupcja’, ‘The Gallerist’, ‘I Want Your Sex’, ‘Sacrifice’, ‘Faces of Death’ and ‘100 Nights of Hero’. Given the pace at which he is chaining projects, we are not surprised that he came up with writing this song.
