Charli xcx finally broke through the mainstream glass ceiling in 2024 with her now infamous record “BRAT.” This mainstream success for the England-born pop star seemed to come out of nowhere to some but for the stans who have been following her career since the beginning, she puts it best in her song “Click”:
When I wanna go pop I’ll pop, I got them hits
And that list of “hits” that she has is long and iconic to the contemporary history of pop music. Spanning from “Boom Clap” for “The Fault in Our Stars” soundtrack to features like “I Love It” with Icona Pop and “Fancy” with Iggy Azalea, Charli is far from a stranger to writing a hit song. In February of 2024, she released “Von Dutch” as the first single from the (at the time) up-and-coming elusive “BRAT” album and the rest was history.
More recently, Charli xcx has been outspoken about her wishes to pivot her career away from the beloved “BRAT” era. In retrospect of the era, Charli wrote in her Substack,
The second you apply a ‘something for everyone’ approach to art… that, in my opinion, is the moment that coolness dies. That is the death of cool.
Throughout her career, Charli has always validated her art’s deserved commercial and mainstream success. One of the stand-out singles from “BRAT,” “360,” even references this in its lyrics when Charli sings “I’m your favorite reference baby.” So, why would the mainstream success of “BRAT” leave a sour taste in her mouth, causing this disconnect between her artistry and her career? What was different about the “BRAT” era that made everyone stop and listen? How did Charli xcx cement herself into mainstream pop-stardom after already maintaining a long and successful career of sleeper-hits that stole the hearts of so many gays and girls — so much earlier than when the rest of the world caught up to her music with “BRAT?”
Past the sheer talent that booms from every bass and synth she uses in her music, Charli marketed “BRAT” methodically and masterfully.
The Marketing of a Moment
During the “BRAT” summer of 2024, no one was able to escape the jarring lime-green shade or the effortless style of the Arial narrow font, always lower-case as not to feign any semblance of a fuck to give. The creation of the loud, minimalistic album cover — an oxymoron that fits “BRAT’s” aesthetic perfectly — sparked from Charli’s “manifesto” that she posted on her secret private @360_brat Instagram account, meant to be a place where superfans could interact with Charli while also adding hype to the release of “BRAT” in June of 2024. Charli would often post behind-the-scenes promotional images, aesthetic mood boards, answer fan Q&A’s and, of course, the debut of this “manifesto.”
Some of the most important rhetoric that Charli promises to deliver with “BRAT” in this manifesto has to do with creating an enigmatic pop-star persona, different from her chronically online, fun presence in past eras of her music. The unapologetically confident and witty hot girl personality of her music is still present, but Charli’s personality is pulled back which allows the music to shine on its own. She spearheaded the messy, cool sunglasses-at-the-club wearing party girl aesthetic that has since evolved into the indie-sleaze trend we see now. The music video for “360” was released on May 10, 2024, and it featured some of the most iconic internet Pinterest-board-worthy hot-girl celebrities including Julia Fox, Alex Consani, Gabriette, Emma Chamberlain, Rachel Sennott, Quen Blackwell and Chloe Cherry to name a few.
Charli’s song, “Apple,” also went viral on TikTok when user @kelley.heyer uploaded herself performing the dance she created to go along with the song. She has since been dubbed the “apple girl,” and a new person is chosen to be put on the big screen to do the “apple dance” at every tour date during Charli xcx’s performance of “Apple.”
The BRAT Wall
Everyone remembers where they were when the “BRAT” green wall was revealed, and how it blew social media up. The album rollout and the album art itself were meant to be shocking, appalling and intriguing — as if Charli was giving everyone the middle finger personally.
Imogene Strauss, Charli’s creative director, commented on the signature green in an interview with Architectural Digest, saying, “We wanted something that felt the least pop, the least accessible, the most jarring.” Also during the album rollout, Charli responded to critics of the album artwork by saying, “I think the constant demand for access to women’s bodies and faces in our album artwork is misogynistic and boring.”
The Remix Album
Charli xcx and long-time peer and friend, Lorde, joined together on a remix of “Girl, so confusing.” From the immediate release of “Girl, so confusing,” rumors spread that the song was about Charli’s strained relationship with Lorde. The rumors were “put to rest” when Lorde jumped on the track in support of Charli. Other notable collabs on the remix album include Ariana Grande, Troye Sivan, Addison Rae, Caroline Polachek and Tinashe. It was a love letter to all of the gays and girls that were listening and loving the new era, but this remix album only helped to prolong “BRAT’s” time in the limelight.
The End of BRAT
In an interview with Apple Music, Charli xcx had this to say about “BRAT’s” continued success:
I know that I won’t have this moment again in this exact same way. The success of “BRAT” is also in ways a curse. I’m not going to be able to market my next album in the same way. I’ll pivot. Whatever I do next will be compared to it, even if the music is completely different…I’m aware that whatever comes next, this is kind of the albatross.
When attending the tour for “BRAT,” TikTok user @veesass uploaded a video of Charli getting annoyed with ‘fake fans’ in the front row of her concert, barely dancing and not knowing any of the words. “Are you fucking joking?” she exclaims at the crowd, throwing her arms up in confusion when she realizes that no one is singing.
Charli has since been involved in multiple movie soundtracks, with the most notable being the studio album she released in February of this year in tandem with the “‘Wuthering Heights‘” film adaptation by Emerald Fennell. The album is intentionally a stark contrast to “BRAT” sonically, replacing club beats with orchestral strings and wavering vocals. Her 2026 film “The Moment” debuted in theaters alongside “‘Wuthering Heights,'” lending itself as yet another testament to Charli’s masterful marketing of herself.
What do you think about Charli xcx’s pivot? Let us know @VALLEYmag on X!
