It’s no secret that Charli xcx is a cinephile, so it was no surprise when the avant-garde pop star revealed that her latest album would feature iconic horror auteur David Cronenberg, especially considering its title is “Music, Fashion, Film.” but what is Surprising is how impactful his contribution is to the larger meaning of the record.

The 83-year-old director of “Crash” and “The Fly” closes the 11-track, 30-minute album with a spoken monologue in the second half of the final song “No One Lasts Forever.” Until that point, Charli takes listeners on a journey through her biggest genre leap yet, as distorted guitars and sparse production replace bright synths and autotune. It’s a far cry from the club-ready hits of “Brat,” and in many ways it’s a reaction to their massive success: there’s the tongue-in-cheek “Rock Music,” which contains a declaration that the dancefloor is dead; the powerful “Camera,” in which she contemplates her blossoming career as an actress; the insipid but ironic “Wink Wink,” where he insists that “people can change.”

But it’s not just Charli’s sound that has taken a heavier turn. Between seemingly superficial lyrics about shopping and wanting to be a pop star in 2007, Charli attempts to answer difficult questions about the purpose of an artist. The sixth song, “I’m Afraid,” provides a taste of this as she laments the obstacles of public life: “All this pain makes me believe/I’m a better artist now/An excuse I tell myself to act selfishly.” Throughout the record, Charli really contemplates her role as an artist and the motivations behind making art, and whether that matters, because the world is probably ending and we’re all going to die anyway.

Nothing captures this existential question better than “No One Lasts Forever,” which begins as one of the most optimistic songs on the album, but soon ventures into deeper waters. “That’s why I’m not afraid of anyone/Because nothing’s going to last forever/But you need to discover that feeling/Of the crushing highs and lows of the ego,” he sings over synths that are a little more reminiscent of his “Brat” era.

It is also by far the longest song on the album, at five minutes and 42 seconds. Cronenberg doesn’t arrive until around the three-minute mark, where he talks casually, as if directly to Charli, apparently about a near-death experience.

“While I was lying on the sidewalk, I didn’t think about art at all,” Cronenberg begins. “I thought about people, I thought about life, and that’s why I like being close to home. In some ways, that was comforting even though it didn’t make sense, you know? But no, I wasn’t thinking about art. And I wasn’t thinking about art as resistance, as immortality. I mean, we could talk about immortal artists of various kinds, and it may turn out that, yes, some artists have created art that has actually survived thousands of years, and that’s fantastic. But experientially, for Are They Dead, are they dead? have been, aren’t you experiencing that?

Cronenberg ends his part by saying, like a mentor giving advice to his student: “Listen to me assure you that oblivion is freedom. They are dead, they are gone, no one lasts forever.”

The last minute and a half of the track consists of that last line repeated over and over again, overlapping itself. It’s a mantra spoken like an old man who’s been through it, assuring Charli that whether or not her art survives isn’t the most important thing; after all, she won’t be around to know. As a hugely successful director, considered the creator of the entire body horror genre, there are times when Cronenberg must have felt unstoppable. But he has also experienced immeasurable grief, as his wife of 38 years, film editor Carolyn Zeifman, died in 2017 (something he explored in his most recent film, “The Shrouds”). Beyond his art, it is his life experience that makes him credible when uttering these words, and they bring us all back to the ground.

Rather than simply being a gimmicky feature to fulfill part of the album’s title, Cronenberg’s words get to the central theme of “Music, Fashion, Film.” More than a rejection of Charli’s mainstream success disguised as reinvention, the album is proof that true artists constantly change, grow, and refuse to fit into a singular box. But as important as art may seem right now, it ultimately isn’t. Because nothing lasts forever. And, if you allow it, knowing it can set you free.