If you did not know Charli xcx before, you certainly do now. Simply put, BRAT is everywhere. Literally. It’s a viral dance on TikTok. It’s an unlikely part of a major presidential campaign. It’s on CNN and Fox News. Your mom knows about it—maybe your grandma too. Your 13-year-old cousin is all excited about the new “BRAT” update in the viral Roblox minigame “Dress to Impress.” “BRAT Summer” is inescapable. It’s a new youth lingo. It’s a color and a font. It’s an adjective and a noun (“that’s BRAT”.) Frankly, it’s starting to get old.
There comes a point in the life cycle of an Internet trend when it enters the mainstream media and is cool no longer. Think “Pokemon Go to the polls,” a now ironic, then cringe-inducing, line uttered by 2016 presidential nominee Hillary Clinton at the height of the app’s fame. Historically, the BRAT trend should have died pretty swiftly after Kamala Harris’s campaign adopted the BRAT aesthetic—lime green and a blurry, stretched-out arial font—for its Twitter banner. Yet arguably, “BRAT Summer” is becoming “BRAT Fall,” driven by the success of the bonus track “Guess featuring Billie Eilish” along with the upcoming remix album led by a new single, “Talk talk featuring troye sivan.” Despite all the oversaturation, “BRAT Summer’s” transcendent popularity lies in the fact that Charli xcx is a fantastic pop artist who will go down in history as one of the most influential figures of the genre. As her slow emergence from cult favorite to main pop girl unfolds, many may be surprised to know that Charli xcx has been cultivating her sound, image, and influence in the music industry for quite some time.
Charli xcx has been creating music since the 2000s, having gotten her start on MySpace; however, my first foray into her music was her 2020 pandemic-inspired album how i’m feeling now. Passing the hours laying on my bed, scrolling what was Twitter at the time, my home page became peppered with mentions of the artist Charli xcx and this great new project she had released. I decided to give it a listen. Marked by a careful juxtaposition between gritty beats and glittery synths, self-indulgent lyrics and intimate love confessions, how i’m feeling now quickly became one of my favorite albums. Charli worked on the album over six weeks during the height of the COVID-19 lockdowns, soliciting fan input on tracks and even collaborating with fan producers on Zoom. The resulting work was an honest and nuanced chronicle of the time, with songs like “anthems” yearning for a return to normalcy and songs like “detonate” reflecting on the emotional turmoil caused by isolation. It was an experimental yet accessible take on pop music and, at the time, Charli xcx at her best.
Despite her capacity to go “mainstream” as a pop star—evidenced by her self-proclaimed “sell-out album” Crash and songwriting credits on radio hits like “Señorita” by Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello—Charli xcx has spent her solo career intent on staying true to her creativity and artistic vision. Her late long-time collaborator, friend, producer, and artist SOPHIE was a key part of this vision. Although their collaborations are now heralded as groundbreaking, they were not always so revered. “Vroom Vroom,” perhaps one of the pair’s biggest hits today, was panned by many critics after its release in 2016. A Pitchfork article called the track and its EP of the same name “pointedly uncommercial and abrasive” and “dead behind the eyes.” Six years later, Lollapalooza festival goers would scream their disagreement with this assessment at the top of their lungs. Charli xcx, SOPHIE, and additional frequent collaborator A.G. Cook of PC Music have long driven mainstream pop icons from the shadows, with collective songwriting and production credits on big industry names from Lady Gaga to Beyonce to BTS.
Aside from musical influence, Charli xcx has an exhaustive list of influences for her style and image as a pop star, which is the subject of BRAT’s opening track “360.” Like all of the icons featured in its music video, from established artists like Chloë Sevigny to the newer-wave likes of Julia Fox, Charli xcx is proud of the fact that she “went her own way and she made it.” “360” is both an ode to and an anthem for artistic integrity, agency, and the “misfits” brought to light on account of nothing but their own merit. It’s both a rejection of the industry and an exploration of the ability to become an icon purely by self-determination. It’s a blatant celebration of femininity in all its forms, and while some may argue the lyrics to be boastful or even “bitchy,” they belie a complex picture of what it means to be a feminine-presenting artist in the current age. And with that picture, we are properly introduced to the concept of a girl who is BRAT in all of her genius and imperfection—a girl who Charli has been embodying for the entirety of her career.
Charli xcx has made great pop albums before, and to the long-time fan, BRAT is just another banger in the catalog. So what made BRAT stick for everyone else? Perhaps it was the desire for “new blood” in the pop music sphere, with new artists like Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter rising through the ranks following a run of lackluster projects from the industry’s more established names. Or maybe BRAT’s success is indicative of a broader acceptance of the queer subcultures that Charli xcx has long revered and accredited her music and style to, despite not being queer herself. Or maybe it was just ingeniously marketed, with a simplistic yet instantly recognizable album cover, TikTok snippets of songs leading up to the release of each single, and a series of private (yet highly documented) DJ sets leading up to the album’s release. Or, I argue, the success of BRAT is a testament to Charli xcx’s existence in pop culture as a BRAT before she put a name to it. We can’t help but be obsessed with her.
It’s only logical that after last year’s Barbie summer, we had to have a BRAT summer—a grungier, sister embodiment of femininity in the twenty-first century. Some would argue it is a more holistic portrayal of feminine self-worth and imperfection. Now, at the summit of the pop music industry, we have Charli xcx, there by her own uncompromising means and accord. What will she do now that she has reached this peak that she has admittedly desired and spurned for so long? Seemingly, her answer is to create remixes and hold onto the era’s significance for as long as possible.
After, my guess is that she will return to creating out-there pop music with industrial-sounding dissonant synths and autotune while continuing to care less “if you love it, if you hate it.” While the world loved it this go-around, a BRAT’s central goal is not about being liked. Still, while BRAT’s unprecedented success may not be replicated for quite some time, we can trust that Charli’s influence will continue to permeate from the niche to the mainstream, at all angles, 360 degrees.
