Charli XCX Restores OG Album Covers: Here’s What That Means

When did Charli change the covers?

The visual overhaul quietly rolled out last June, right around the release of Brat. Fans clocked it almost instantly. Entire Reddit threads and TikToks were dedicated to dissecting the sudden erasure of Charli’s cover art: Why scrub your own visual history? What was she trying to say?

Charli never explicitly explained the shift.

What were the OG covers?

Charli’s debut, True Romance, featured her kneeling and staring into the camera, surrounded by color bursts. The alt version was a plain purple background with white text.

Sucker showcased her bratty glam: a candy heart, a leopard-print top, a snarl. The alternate was bubblegum-pink minimalism.

2019’s Charli had her nearly nude, adorned in alien chrome circles—maybe a nod to the future of pop itself? Its replacement was a flat grey square with the title in black letters.

Her DIY pandemic opus, How I’m Feeling Now, originally featured a candid-style photo of Charli in bed, filming herself. The Brat-ified version reduced the art to white space with grayish text.

And then there’s Crash—some say her best cover—which shows her in a black bikini, bleeding dramatically on the hood of a car. The alternate stuck to bold red letters on a sterile blue background.

Why did she change them?

Charli hasn’t given a detailed explanation of her decision, but she’s been aware of the fan demand for months. Back in March, she responded to a fan’s request on TikTok:

“I see that you want this, I know that you want this, and I love that you want it. I love this narrative. But all I’ll say is, every single thing that I’ve done, even the tiniest, smallest thing, has been for a reason. Like to the point where some people wouldn’t even know.” 

She doubled down: “What I’m saying is, everything has a purpose, everything I do has a purpose, and so when this happens, it will be for a reason.”

How does Charli feel about album covers in general?

Charli’s relationship with visuals has always been layered, especially when it comes to how her image is used and consumed. Brat was the first album cover of hers not to include her face, a decision that sparked major backlash.

In Vogue Singapore, she explained: “They were like, ‘Why isn’t she going to be on the cover? She needs to be on the cover.’ Why should anyone have that level of ownership over female artists?”

She also spoke about the decision to go with such a harsh green. 

“I wanted to go with an offensive, off-trend shade of green to trigger the idea of something being wrong,” she said. “I’d like for us to question our expectations of pop culture—why are some things considered good and acceptable, and some things deemed bad? I’m interested in the narratives behind that and I want to provoke people. I’m not doing things to be nice.”

Charli isn’t just defending her own choices. She’s weighing in on how women in music are expected to present themselves, full stop. When someone tweeted a dig at album covers from Ariana Grande, Dua Lipa, Taylor Swift, and Charli herself, suggesting “art directors must be on strike,” Charli shot back: “there is literally so much to say on this….”

And then, more directly: “i think the constant demand for access to women’s bodies and faces in our album artwork is [misogynistic] and boring.”