Charli XCX Pairs ‘SS26’ With Physical-Only B-Side ‘Playboy Bunny’

Charli XCX returned this month with the lead single “Rock Music,” a track that split listeners, and quickly followed it with a B-side kept entirely off streaming platforms. Now she repeats the move. Her new single “SS26” arrives alongside “Playboy Bunny,” a pop-punk B-side that exists only on Instagram and a limited 7” vinyl pressing.

On her dedicated b.sides Instagram account, she laid out the logic. The B-sides are songs she made that felt part of the album’s world but never belonged on the record. Instead, she pairs them with the official singles as deliberate opposites. “Playboy Bunny” is meant as a sonic mirror to “SS26,” a contrast she says is the whole point of the coupling. The video for the B-side was shot the day after the “SS26” visuals, with Charli noting she was still hungover from the previous shoot.

Physical scarcity and platform restriction aren’t new for this album cycle. The lead single “Rock Music” got the same treatment earlier in the month: its B-side, “I Keep on Thinking Bout You Every Single Day and Night,” landed on the same secondary Instagram account and a 7-inch. Both B-sides will stay off streaming, she confirmed, making the vinyl and the ephemeral social posts the only places to hear them.