It took 15 years, but finally, singer/DJ/producer Charli XCX has managed to break into the mainstream of global pop. Within two months, the songs from her much-anticipated album Brat have taken over social media, the charts and, of course, the clubs.
Whether it’s the TikTok dance to Apple or the summer anthem of the cool girls — Von Dutch and 365, her iconic and long-awaited collaboration with Lorde on Girl, So Confusing or the surprising remix of Guess featuring Billie Eilish, was released on Friday.
Left out of the spotlight
Charlotte Emma Aitchison was born in 1992 in Cambridge, UK. The artist began her journey online – as a teenager, she uploaded songs to MySpace, the largest social network of the early to mid-2000s, which served as a springboard for quite a few British musicians, such as Arctic Monkeys, Lily Allen and Adele. True to someone who grew up on the Internet, her stage name was also her username on the MSN Messenger chat service.
Her online activity caught the attention of a promoter who invited her to play at raves across the capital. Thus, at just 15 years of age, Charli was invited to perform at underground parties, accompanied, of course, by her parents, who drove her to the events and sometimes stayed with her there until early in the morning while their daughter waited her turn to play.
Her first album, 2013’s True Romance, which came out after her first mixtape in 2008, didn’t achieve broad commercial success despite receiving positive reviews. It was her collaboration with the Swedish duo Icona Pop on the song I Love It in 2012, which XCX co-wrote and provided background vocals for, that led to her relative breakthrough – though she claims that her life didn’t change overnight even to this day.
Indeed, there was something tricky about those times for the musician. On the surface, it seemed she was riding high – her second album was more popular than the first, and its lead single, Boom Clap, accompanied the soundtrack of the leading teen drama The Fault in Our Stars upon its release in 2014.
The second single, an infectious electro-rock/synth-pop hit called Break the Rules, also topped the charts worldwide. That same year, Charli lent her voice to the chorus of Fancy, one of Australian rapper Iggy Azalea’s biggest hits, in a video that garnered much attention as the two stepped into the shoes of characters from the movie Clueless.
But even after touching fame and being nominated for two Grammy Awards, the musician returned to the fringes of pop – always working, releasing albums at a steady pace, but never being quite in the spotlight.
Interestingly, in the following years, Charli XCX's musical collaborations signaled an exciting and refreshing period. In 2016, XCX recorded an EP titled Vroom Vroom with the Scottish producer SOPHIE, who was considered one of the most intriguing voices in experimental pop in the second decade of the 21st century and a pioneer of hyperpop.
The EP was sharply criticized at release, with Pitchfork magazine giving it a 4.9 rating at the time. However, in a revised review three years later, the score was updated to 7.8, and the new critique encouraged listeners not to take the work too seriously but to simply enjoy it.
Like Charli herself, the title track Vroom Vroom grew with the Internet, becoming a viral sensation — even reaching TikTok years after its release.
But the story took a tragic turn when SOPHIE, an openly transgender artist who was an influential and groundbreaking figure far beyond the boundaries of dance-pop music, died in an accident after falling from a three-story building while vacationing in Athens, trying to capture a full moon.
Charli has since frequently mentioned how much the producer influenced her work, often paying tribute to her – even years after her passing.
Although Charli admitted she was "lost" at the beginning of her career, constantly partying and spending almost as much time in clubs as in the studio, she never stopped working. However, when her music was leaked in 2017, forcing her to cancel a project that was in the works, she decided to release Boys as a standalone single – a song dedicated to her love for men.
Appropriately, the accompanying music video was packed with objectified stars – from Joe Jonas to Charlie Puth, Diplo, Wiz Khalifa, Ty Dolla Sign and more. Two years later, she released her third album, Charli, which included the duet 1999 with Troye Sivan, and just eight months later, she released an album while in quarantine produced at home – How I'm Feeling Now.
The long-awaited shift toward mainstream success began around her fifth album, with a likely boost from her involvement in the soundtrack of last summer's hit film Barbie, for which she created the hit Speed Drive.
The album, Crash – which she dedicated to SOPHIE – achieved the most significant commercial success of her career to that point and received relatively positive reviews from various magazines.
It featured collaborations with rising names like Rina Sawayama, Christine and the Queens and Caroline Polachek, alongside dark aesthetics, polished production and musical treats like Good Ones and Yuck. But all of this merely set the stage for the massive success that followed in 2024.
'Kamala IS Brat'
Before releasing the most talked-about album of the year, Charli was stuck in a creative rut. For months, the musician had no idea what she was going to do. "I want to quit, I can't make music anymore," she told her managers — her friends since she was 11.
But advice from British producer Fred Again helped her weather the crisis: he suggested she work through the block until she found an idea she liked. It's no surprise that in an album that managed to break through all the barriers Charli dreamed of, she simply needed to go back to the club music she grew up with and finds most exciting.
On first listen, it was clear that BRAT is far from an album for everyone. On the musical production, Charli is joined by A.J. Cook and Finn Keane, who she’s worked with many times, as well as Circuit and even her fiancé, George Daniel, drummer for The 1975. The result is a daring and captivating hyper-pop-dance album, receiving a rough treatment that results in a gut-punching sound that makes listeners want to dance.
The opening track, 360, features one of the most addictive pop melodies of the moment (and crescendos
into an extreme in the closing track 365, which serves as a kind of internal remix).
Despite the sweet singing and numerous references to her friends (when she sings "I'm so Julia," referring to model and actress Julia Fox), it’s far from an innocent song. In a conscious homage to the rave and club culture she’s lived with since childhood, Charli weaves references to drug use at parties into almost every line of the song.
The first single from the album, Von Dutch, is a mantra for all girl groups. "It's okay to admit you’re jealous of me," she sings in the opening line, "It’s so obvious I’m your number one." It seems that in this opening note to this musical era, Charli XCX predicted everything to come – with the perfect blend of pop and cult culture pieces, combined with a clear obsession with the early 2000s and a video celebrating star culture and paparazzi.
Add to that a concentrated dose served in an infusion of catchy pop, with even the remix of the song featuring Addison Rae performing well on TikTok, and you have the recipe for a pop star in 2024.
The mantra accompanying the album since its release is "Brat Summer" – it’s the soundtrack that cool kids listen to during their holidays in Europe, the party you’re dying to get into and the life you want for yourself.
Speaking of parties, Charli hosted two Boiler Room sets – the popular British broadcasting body that organizes parties worldwide. The first, held in New York in February and called PARTYGIRL, broke the booking site, drawing over 35,000 users, with only 400 eventually attending. The second took place in Ibiza at the end of July, where Charli was already crowned the queen of summer.
Joining the social media momentum was also one Kamala Harris – the U.S. Democratic presidential candidate. The day after U.S. President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the upcoming race, British Charli posted on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), "Kamala is BRAT," in a post that garnered over 54 million views.
Harris' campaign, which clearly targets young voters, seized the opportunity and "adopted" the album's aesthetic — text in a simple font over a vivid, Chartreuse green background, like the album cover. When someone of Harris' stature embraces the most current Internet language, it’s clear the phenomenon extends beyond music, possibly even beyond culture, if it can get young people to vote.
The revolution was completed in recent months, but the final stamp of approval came from Billie Eilish — who joined a surprising remix of Guess, one of the bonus tracks from the album, produced by The Dare, one of the intriguing up-and-comers in the scene.
In another nod to the wild pop star culture of the early millennium, the two singers invite listeners to guess the color of their underwear, a cheeky hint at what’s to come. In the verse added by Eilish, she takes things a step further by addressing her attraction to women as well.
But the joint remix is not just another musical provocation, but a statement. Eilish — whose current success is meteoric — rarely features on other artists' songs. Aside from a few collaborations, including songs with Khalid, Vince Staples and a duet with Rosalía that appeared on the Euphoria soundtrack, Eilish works alongside her brother Finneas and almost never steps outside her familiar creative boundaries.
Her latest album is a huge success, and she certainly doesn’t "need" collaborations to boost her career. However, the collaboration seems to have officially propelled Charli into the mainstream, enhancing the album's hit roster rather than relying on a single song while also adding a cooler layer to Eilish's persona.
The song’s success was celebrated by Charli XCX, Billie Eilish and every hot name you can think of (from Julia Fox, Rachel Sennott and Addison Rae to Lorde, Rosalía, Sabrina Carpenter and even Hollywood stars like Glen Powell and Anya Taylor-Joy) at the singer’s glittering 32nd birthday party, which was the wildest event of the past weekend.
This celebration not only marks the success of the joint single but also the upcoming future where Charli XCX is no longer considered just an it-girl among insiders but in public. Having spent her career yearning for awards and recognition, she’s now a nominee for the prestigious British Mercury Prize and a strong contender for the upcoming Grammy Awards. And if everything goes as planned, this summer will last for a long time.