Brat Summer has grown to such a large scale, now having reached an official US presidential campaign. So it may surprise you that the popstar behind all this is relatively small in size. Charli XCX is only the 105th biggest artist on Spotify, and her album Brat was outsold by Taylor Swift’s, Beyoncé’s and even Dua Lipa’s 2024 releases. However, it seems Charli exchanged localised commercial success with pop culture ubiquity, undeniably dominating the summer aesthetic. So, how has Charli XCX made ‘Brat Summer’ a magnetic live event?

Charli has made sure that the cost of entry is low, prescribing “a pack of cigs, a Bic lighter and a strappy white top with no bra” as sufficient Brat Summer wear. And how could we not talk about the iconic album cover which makes anything lime green automatically ‘Brat-coded’. A website was set up to allow users to input custom text in the brat theme and use it copyright free – the results include a sausage company using the template to market their ‘bratwurst’. Initially a jarring countercultural eyesore, the look has now adopted warmth in its ubiquity. What’s crucial about the aesthetic is that it’s easy to participate in but still specific enough to be distinct – it’s a real if-you-know-you-know affair.

The albums musical backbone of dance and techno attaches the essence of clubbing. To anyone who has ever clubbed before, you will be familiar with the fact that it can very quickly go from a mindlessly fun night out to a panicked reconsideration of your life choices. Brat, then, was such a breath of fresh air, as Charli’s insecurities were bluntly laid out over electrifying dance beats, validating our existential crises while also giving us permission to dance it all out. Of course, vulnerability is nothing new in pop music, and is essential for forming closer relationships with fans, but the impact usually stops there – unless the song in question happens to be ‘Girl, so confusing’. A detailed vent of unsaid insecurities tapped by an unnamed female pop star (“Sometimes I think you might hate me/Sometimes I think I might hate you”), this story typically ends in fan speculation about who the person in question was until the conversation dies down. But two weeks after the song’s release, a remix version was released featuring Lorde, who excruciatingly breaks down her insecurities formed by Charli herself. Lorde’s instantly iconic line “Let’s work it out on the remix” illustrates the brilliant liveness of ‘Brat’: an unlikely example of killing two birds with one stone, Charli receives Lorde’s response in the same format that the eventual audience would, repairing her relationship with Lorde and creating a watershed moment in pop culture simultaneously, ultimately making audiences feel as included in the conversation as the artist herself.

Charli would use her second post-release remix to create a similarly live conversation. Billie Eilish appears on a remix of ‘Guess’, marking her first feature since publicly revealing her bisexuality and a landmark album release earlier this year which propelled her to the second most listened artist on Spotify. Billie piggybacks off of ‘Guess’ steaming sexual bravado and uses the canvas to shoot her shot with Charli (“Charli likes boys but she knows I’d hit it”). Once again, the song fosters a conversation that the audience sees in the same vessel Charli does and creates a UK chart topper in the process.

However, what truly earned Charli XCX the summer is the audacity to keep our calendars full. In a world where artists are scared to release their album any longer than a month after announcement, in the fear of losing relevancy, it was a bold move to announce Brat at the end of February for a June 7th release. But this wait never proved boring, but instead exhilarating. It felt like something new was happening every two weeks – a new single, a Boiler Room DJ set, an internet breaking collab, changing all her previous album covers to match the ‘Brat’ font – and the momentum only grew after the albums release, with notable events being the release of a deluxe version only 3 days after the album’s release and the ‘Brat Wall’, a huge green wall in New York which updated to reveal hints about the next part of the rollout.

The consistency and diversity in the content Charli xcx released this year are the reason that Brat Summer feels more like a living entity than a traditional album rollout.  With such ease of participation, it was refreshing that Charli had set aside her ego – all the fun was not happening under her name, but under Brat’s. The sense of communal ownership around Brat is what makes Brat Summer such a no-brainer. As Charli herself puts it, “I’m everywhere, I’m so Julia”. Who is Julia, you may ask? #iykyk”

Photo credits: Wikimedia Commons