365 Days of ‘Brat': How Charli xcx Cultivated a Pop Cultural Phenomenon Her Own Way

Yahoo

a day ago

'It's hard being ahead,' Charli xcx declared at an early viewing party for her sixth studio album, Brat, last May, roughly a month before the record's debut. 'We're all ahead because everybody in here, like, gets it.'
Flash forward a year, it's been exactly 365 days since Charli debuted the project that defined the summer of 2024 (a la 'Brat summer'), had everyone wanting to be a party girl and now unofficially defines the lime green color. A year later, it still feels like Brat summer still hasn't ended yet (perhaps because she's still touring the record this summer).
More from The Hollywood Reporter
Cynthia Erivo Gets Support From Oprah, Belts Out "Sometimes All You Need Is a Song" in Tony Awards Opening
How Ticket Resellers Caused Drama at Miley Cyrus' 'Something Beautiful' Tribeca Film Premiere
Miley Cyrus Says She Knows What Upcoming 12-Track Experimental Album "Feels Like"
At this point, though, most know that the Essex singer-songwriter breach's into commercial success was a long-time coming. Of course, Charli broke out years ago, earning her first (and sole) No.1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 with she and Iggy Azalea's 'Fancy' in the summer of 2014.
Coincidentally, the track debuted at the top of the charts dated June 7th, the same date that she released Brat a decade later. Brat went on to dominate the pop culture zeitgeist after its release, though the album's chart and streaming success didn't necessarily match its cultural impact.
Before Brat arrived, Charli brilliantly arranged its release. First, there was 'Von Dutch,' released in February, followed up by a remix featuring A.G. Cook and influencer turned artist Addison Rae, which some didn't understand at the time. As Charli said before, 'it's hard being ahead,' giving an early peek into Rae's blossoming career that's now happening in real time (she dropped her debut album Friday, garnering lots of buzz in the chatter in the process) and, ironically, the moment Charli was about to have that summer.
Charli built the album's hype further with the release of the single '360' and its adjoining music video, jam-packed with It Girl after It Girl. The widespread public may have not recognized its stars in Julia Fox, Gabbriette, Rachel Sennott, Chloë Sevigny and Alex Consani upon first glance, but it's likely you recognize their names now, a year later.
While she began releasing tracks from the record, Charli catered to her fans, deemed 'Angels' (no, they're not called 'Brats'), with impromptu fan events. She played a pop-up at the Lot Garden in Brooklyn, where the Brat Wall was born and would later serve as the go-to hub for her to tease more aspects of Brat, including her collaboration with Lorde, and the deluxe album.
When Brat finally arrived on June 7, it debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200, also landing at No. 2 on the U.K.'s official albums charts after being blocked by a string of U.K.-only re-releases of Taylor Swift's Tortured Poets Department. The charts, paired with the lyrics of 'Sympathy is a knife,' led eagle-eyed fans to believe the two pop singers were at odds.
Charli put those speculations to rest, though she and Lorde later confirmed that 'Girl, so confusing' was indeed about the New Zealand songwriter. On the original version of the song, Charli sings about a muddled relationship with a friend over the years. Then, two weeks after Brat came out, the two artists dropped a new version of the song where they undoubtedly 'work[ed] it out on the remix.'
There were also factors stoking the flames well beyond Charli's own intentions. Charli started yet another viral moment as she tweeted 'Kamala IS brat,' after Kamala Harris took over as the presumptive Democratic nominee, which led Harris' campaign to change its profile banner to match the 'brat' its aesthetic sparking a slew of newscasters pondering what exactly it meant to be 'Brat.'
Long after the hype of the original Brat could have died down, Charli confirmed a fully remixed follow-up album in September, Brat and it's completely different but also still brat. There, she collaborated with mainstream successes in Billie Eilish and Ariana Grande, underground stars in Shygirl and BB Trickz and even her fiancé's band, the 1975. The remixed record's release, too, boosted Brat into the No. 1 spot on the U.K.'s official album charts. 'Guess,' with Billie Eilish became arguably the biggest track of the Brat era, with over 635 million streams on Spotify.
Charli and Troye embarked on their Sweat Tour, which saw collaborators such as Eilish, Lorde, Addison, Kesha and Tate McRae join them for surprise performances on tour stops, further boosting the demand and desire to be embedded in the Brat lifestyle.
In November, Charli received another wave of commercial success when she earned seven Grammy noms. Yes, she'd been nominated by the Recording Academy before, but she landed her first nods in coveted categories, including album of the year, and eventually went on to earn her first three Grammys while delivering her debut, quintessential Charli xcx-set at the 2025 awards ceremony.
The Sweat Tour led to Charli announcing the Brat Tour, which initially consisted of five dates, two of which were set in Brooklyn. Demand for the tour, however, peaked, leading her team to add two more nights to the New York-based concert that eventually sold out.
Then, she hosted Saturday Night Live, delivered buzzy sets during both weekends of Coachella this April, cameoed in Hulu's Overcompensating, headlined Primavera Sound (reprising Sweat Tour with Sivan by her side), announced her own Party Girl Festival in London this summer, and the list goes on.
Currently, she's wrecked the 'Brat' imagery at her shows and on all of its digital art, scribbling the word out and making it look as though the cover is rotting.
Brat is now bringing attention back to Charli's deeper catalog, as her 2020 track 'party 4 u' from How I'm Feeling Now is also having it's own moment, debuting for the first time on the Hot 100 last month, roughly five years after it released. The surge, boosted by its virality on TikTok, even led Charli to release an adjoining music video on its five-year anniversary.
One year after Brat, and Charli is in demand as ever. At the end of her Coachella set during weekend one, she pondered the question in large text on a screen: 'does this mean that brat summer is finally over?' and addressed the existentialism of one of the biggest moments of her career potentially being over: 'i don't know who i am if it's over???'
It's hard to imagine the era being truly done at least until she finally wraps up her shows later this Summer. Brat summer was never a period of time, it was an essence. Charli meticulously unified the wider pop cultural landscape, all the while being nothing but her authentic herself. And for an artist who's often been labeled ahead of the curve in pop, perhaps for Charli, Brat's biggest legacy will be as the record that finally helped the rest of us catch up.
Best of The Hollywood Reporter
Most Anticipated Concert Tours of 2025: Beyoncé, Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar & SZA, Sabrina Carpenter and More
Hollywood's Most Notable Deaths of 2025
Hollywood's Highest-Profile Harris Endorsements: Taylor Swift, George Clooney, Bruce Springsteen and More