The Wire
07.06.26
Charli XCX puts Cale, Jacobs and Scorsese on her album cover, instead of herself.
// Annelies · 2 min read
Music, Fashion, Film drops 24 July. The cover, shot by Aidan Zamiri, frames the title's three categories with one figure each. We shot Charli at Sziget last summer.
Charli XCX announced her seventh album on 1 June 2026. Music, Fashion, Film drops 24 July. The cover does something a pop album cover does not usually do. It puts John Cale, Marc Jacobs and Martin Scorsese on the front. Three men sitting in a kitchen, shot in black-and-white by Aidan Zamiri.
One name for each word in the title. Cale carries the music as a Velvet Underground co-founder, Jacobs the fashion, Scorsese the film. Charli herself is not in the frame.
On TikTok the day of the announcement, Charli told fans she had “made an album and it’s really different from the last one,” adding: “I love it. And you might not, and that’s cool.” The record runs eleven tracks in thirty minutes and was made in ten days at Studio Boyer in Paris last October.
For a record titled with three disciplines, handing the cover to three established figures from those disciplines is a category portrait. From the photographer side of the room, this move does not happen often at the commercial pop level. The choice to step out of the frame is itself the visual statement.
Singles “Rock Music” (May 8) and “SS26” (May 21) are already out. The full record drops 24 July.
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