Charli XCX lets the guitars blur on Playboy Bunny

Charli XCX’s Playboy Bunny is a useful 25 May indie-adjacent item because it continues her strange, fast-moving post-Brat guitar-era rollout. The track appeared as a b-side connected to the SS26 single cycle and, at the time of coverage, was circulating through her b-sides Instagram and limited 7-inch vinyl rather than a straightforward streaming release. That makes it feel more like a scene object than a normal pop drop: half tease, half collector item, half deliberate confusion.

Charli has been playing with rock language lately, first through Rock Music, then the b-side I Keep Thinking About You Every Single Day And Night, and now Playboy Bunny. But she has also pushed back against the simple idea that she is just making a rock album. That tension is the interesting part.

Playboy Bunny has been described as a sassy shoegaze anthem, built around fuzzy atmospheric guitars and Charli’s usual instinct for turning attitude into hook. For an indie digest, the track matters because Charli is one of the few mainstream-scale artists who can still pull underground language into pop without making it feel completely domesticated. Shoegaze, club pop, electroclash, fashion-week chaos and internet rollout theatre all meet here. The result is not indie in the traditional sense, but it is absolutely part of the indie-adjacent conversation about where guitar textures and pop performance are going in 2026. Source: https://stereogum.com/2499976/charli-xcx-playboy-bunny/music