Two-minute Pop, 30-second Rock

I’m out of my depth writing on pop music, but Charli XCX’s new album Music, Fashion, Film dares us to think about lines drawn around rock. “We were doing our version of analogue,” she told Laura Snapes - quickly qualifying to undercut any portentousness, “But putting it through our lens, and making sure that nothing felt too macho, was important.”

“We” and “our” may be the true key words in those pop-wise statements, however. Charli XCX is a band on the latest album: a trio of Charli, A. G. Cook, and Finn Keane, with songwriting credits generally shared by the three (Aitchison/Cook/Keane), and production by the two gents. In the visual version of the album, a “making of” the record and its more formal videos, the three are seen traipsing around between hotels, carrying the instruments and equipment they need to work, looking like nothing so much as Young Marble Giants or maybe Saint Etienne on tour. “Why don’t I just make the album and listen to it with AG and Finn?” Charli wondered a…