Our New Favorite Reference: How BRAT Disrupted The Music Industry and Became a Cultural Phenomenon
Singer-songwriter Charli xcx has taken the music industry by storm, disrupting the space of “pop” music and what it can sound like. In early August, the British singer saw an impressive 9 million increase in Spotify monthly listeners and a 597.6% increase over her average weekly growth. As of October 26th, she has over 4 million followers and almost 40 million monthly listeners on Spotify. From epitomizing what it means to have a “brat summer” to completely personifying the brat philosophy through her 360 music video with personalities like Alex Consani and Julia Fox, Charli has created something beautifully tumultuous through the counterculture of hyperpop and rebellion—something very on brand for her. Her successful conversion from being known as a typical, dollar-a-pop mainstream singer—alongside the alleged accusations of being a “sell-out” from her song Speed Drive that appeared in the recent Barbie movie—to a more rugged, brash, yet vulnerable iteration of what she views as a true representation of her artistry has stirred the public into a frenzy haze. After stumbling along the line between mainstream, commercial pop music and underground sleaze, Charli has finally cultivated a space that allows her to be unapologetically herself—and the fans can’t get enough of it. Chartdata on X revealed that Brat returned to its peak of #3 on Billboard 200 on October 21st, with over 180 million global streams following the release of its remix.
Speaking of remixes—re-releases, deluxe albums, and remix songs are nothing new to the music industry. Taylor Swift released 34 variations of her newest album, The Tortured Poets Department, stirring discourse around the true value of re-releases and the idea of “new-but-not-new music.” New content or not, no matter how you try to phrase this, it allows artists to further profit off of their fanbase without having to produce an entirely new album. For Taylor Swift, who holds a powerful monopoly over the pop industry and has accumulated over 90 million monthly listeners on Spotify, all it takes is a flick of the wrist to push down even harder on the guillotine of capitalism.
Thus, when Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat was announced, the general consensus was akin to slight interest but nothing over the top. After the buzz caused by its original release, it seemed near impossible to top the album of the summer (amongst many others, of course – this is solely for the sake of noting Charli’s holistic musical career). With previous singles featuring artists like Lorde, Troye Sivan, and even Addison Rae, it didn’t seem like it could get any better. Or could it?
Nevertheless, Charli dropped her long-awaited remix album for BRAT on October 11th, launching a real-time countdown weeks before the release on streaming platforms like Spotify to further build anticipation. In tune with the simple yet abrasive typography and pungent green color of the original, Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat mirrored the same hazy Arial font and fluorescent green backdrop. Charli brought in an impressive lineup of feature artists onto the album, including big names like Ariana Grande, Kesha, Bon Iver, and The 1975.
My first contact with Charli xcx was her older pop songs when they would play on the radio; I was 12 years old on the way to soccer practice, and I’d hear “Boom Clap” from the speakers of my mom’s car. Then, admittedly, I sort of just… forgot about her. I’d seen tidbits of news around Charli in the media every now and then, but the viral clip of her screaming before Vroom Vroom at Lollapalooza 2022 made me rekindle my admiration for her. Not only did I find it hilarious, but I loved the controlled chaos of it all. I love when artists know how to command a stage, and that’s exactly what she did—something she continued to do with her SWEAT tour that concluded on October 23rd.
So how on earth did Charli rise to critically acclaimed success in such a short period of time? Genius marketing, the importance of branding, and most of all: courage.
Charli’s music career has been through the ringer, with an unusual trajectory but nevertheless overtly triumphant. She is no stranger to the music industry; first introduced to the rave scene in 2008 and the world of underground music, Charlotte Emma Aitchison has always loved the sound of electronic dance music. Unsurprisingly, she spent the next decade steering away from it as a brighter spotlight glared down on her. After releasing a series of singles and mixtapes with Asylum Records in early 2010, Icona Pop re-recorded Charli’s vocals from ‘I Love It’ and it became an international hit, even hitting number one in Charli’s home country. This further propelled Charli’s rise to fame, leading to more opportunities like featuring on Iggy Azalea’s ‘Fancy’ (which topped the US Billboard Hot 100 in 2014 and became her first number-one single on the chart) and ‘Boom Clap’ in The Fault in Our Stars (reaching the top 10 in the same year).
With BRAT marking her sixth studio album, it is the final accumulation of everything Charli has wanted to say but simply couldn’t—until now. Grappling with her identity for the past few years under the ever-so-vigilant public eye and scrutinizing music industry could not have been easy; it feels almost as if the unpalatable green palette and seemingly low-effort album cover is nothing more than a sarcastic defiance of the current state of pop music, a big middle-finger to the accusations and doubters. (Later she revealed in an interview with Zane Lowe on Apple Music that it was actually to save money because she did not think BRAT would appeal to a lot of people. Little did she know!)
Charli’s strategic tactics behind the promotion of this new era certifies her as a trailblazer in innovative digital marketing. After initially revealing the neon green album cover with its intentionally “sloppy” design and blatant simplicity, conversations surrounding BRAT were ignited before the release of any actual content. Despite the amount of criticism it received, this only fueled Charli’s visibility; it turned what could have been perceived as a liability into one of the strongest aspects of Charli’s marketing campaign: user-generated content. Her team ingeniously launched a Brat generator website, where users could write whatever they wanted in the same font and style as Charli’s very own. This subsequently led to hundreds of thousands of TikTok profile pictures, lyric videos in the lower-case Arial font, you name it—everywhere you looked on social media, you’d see some essence of BRAT in one way or another. This user-generated content strategy directly gave fans the tools and space to create their own versions of BRAT, turning the audience into active participants in the promotion. It was brilliant, intuitive, and fun, embodying the essence of BRAT and strengthening Charli’s growing fanbase.
From Duolingo cameos at the SWEAT tour to single handedly influencing political candidate Kamala Harris’ social media antics through a singular tweet (and memeable clips involving coconut trees), Charli had become a social media sensation. It continued offline as well; playing around with experiential marketing, her promotion of BRAT literally plastered onto the walls of New York alongside surprise live performances with unreleased songs materialized the digital buzz into something tangible, generating an air of exclusivity and scarcity—driving current and soon-to-be fans absolutely bonkers.
BRAT propelled Charli’s career through the roof. It’s well-deserved for an album akin to the zeitgeist of dance-pop and club music, breaking boundaries for what it means to be “popular” in pop culture and music. Where mainstream pop often leans into polished production, accessible lyrics and feel-good vibes, BRAT intentionally disrupts these conventions with its abrasive and minimalistic production style inspired by hyperpop and 2000s electro house.
BRAT is the antithesis of pop, defying typical pop norms and embracing confrontational themes through experimental sounds. The album cover, for example: the abhorrent neon green color is an eye-sore. Yet it has become an iconic color bound to Charli’s name, further strengthening her brand identity and influencing fashion, food, even corporations—the list goes on. “I wanted to go with an offensive, off-trend shade of green to trigger the idea of something being wrong,” she explained in an interview for Vogue Singapore. “I’d like for us to question our expectations of pop culture—why are some things considered good and acceptable, and some things deemed bad?”
Throughout the album, Charli wholeheartedly sings about herself, her friends, and partying. It is sleazy, audacious, and overflowing with high-pitched synthesized vocals. With a rather serrated underground sound production, Charli comes full circle with her passion for rave music and the liberating, wayward attitude associated with it. Yet beneath the flirtatious and euphoric swagger oozing out of songs like ‘Von dutch’ and ‘Guess’, Charli’s lyrics reveal a vulnerable, raw, and self-conscious side to her emotions. A closer look into her lyricism and listeners will discover themes of jealousy, self-confidence, and complex interpersonal relationship dynamics. She confesses that she is unsure “whether I think I deserve commercial success” in ‘Rewind’ and described herself as “famous but not quite” on ‘I Might Say Something Stupid’.
It’s smoking a pack of cigarettes and knocking back shots of lukewarm vodka in the blurred haze of a nightclub. It’s the messy imperfection of reality and our shared fear of embracing it. BRAT beautifully balances heavy yet simplistic beats with deeply personal reflections on womanhood and where she stands in the music industry, especially among other female artists. An article from The Guardian described how Charli’s feelings “hit less like complaints about fame - pop’s most deadening theme - than profound observations of all kinds of relationships, not least how women end up constructing brusque personae to survive the stupid hell of socialization.”
Charli’s fearless approach to BRAT is a testament to her evolution—not just as an artist, but as a person willing to fail boldly in the pursuit of authenticity. At Wall Street Journal’s 2024 Music Innovator Awards, she spoke on overcoming the fear of failure: “I really truly believe that to creatively innovate, you must push the boundaries—and above all, you must be prepared to fail, which I’ve done many times. And I’m okay with that now, but I wasn’t then.” Her sincerity and modesty speaks for itself; looking back at her musical career journey and seeing the person she has grown into today, Charli xcx encourages us to all take risks in order to redefine our own version of success. While “brat summer” may have passed, its message lives on, urging us to live unapologetically and stay true to ourselves in every season of life.
