Charli xcx

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  • BRAT
    BRAT
    BRAT

    It’s no surprise that “PARTYGIRL” is the name Charli xcx adopted for the DJ nights she put on in support of BRAT. It’s kind of her brand anyway, but on her sixth studio album, the British pop star is revelling in the trashy, sugary glitz of the club. BRAT is a record that brings to life the pleasure of colourful, sticky dance floors and too-sweet alcopops lingering in the back of your mouth, fizzing with volatility, possibility and strutting vanity (“I’ll always be the one,” she sneers deliciously on the A. G. Cook- and Cirkut-produced opening track “360”). Of course, Charli xcx—real name Charlotte Aitchison—has frequently taken pleasure in delivering both self-adoring bangers and poignant self-reflection. Take her 2022 pop-girl yet often personal concept album CRASH, which was preceded by the diaristic approach of her excellent lockdown album how i’m feeling now. But here, there’s something especially tantalising in her directness over the intoxicating fumes of hedonism. Yes, she’s having a raucous time with her cool internet It-girl friends, but a night out also means the introspection that might come to you in the midst of a party, or the insurmountable dread of the morning after. On “So I”, for example, she misses her friend and fellow musician, the brilliant SOPHIE, and lyrically nods to the late artist’s 2017 track “It’s Okay to Cry”. Charli xcx has always been shaped and inspired by SOPHIE, and you can hear the influence of her pioneering sounds in many of the vocals and textures throughout BRAT. Elsewhere, she’s trying to figure out if she’s connecting with a new female friend through love or jealousy on the sharp, almost Uffie-esque “Girl, so confusing”, on which Aitchison boldly skewers the inanity of “girl’s girl” feminism. She worries she’s embarrassed herself at a party on “I might say something stupid”, wishes she wasn’t so concerned about image and fame on “Rewind” and even wonders quite candidly about whether she wants kids on the sweet sparseness of “I think about it all the time”. In short, this is big, swaggering party music, but always with an undercurrent of honesty and heart. For too long, Charli xcx has been framed as some kind of fringe underground artist, in spite of being signed to a major label and delivering a consistent run of albums and singles in the years leading up to this record. In her BRAT era, whether she’s exuberant and self-obsessed or sad and introspective, Charli xcx reminds us that she’s in her own lane, thriving. Or, as she puts it on “Von dutch”, “Cult classic, but I still pop.”

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About Charli xcx

Charli xcx’s creative drive and willingness to take risks has made her one of the most enthralling pop artists of her era. Whether she’s penning defiantly joyous singles like “Boom Clap” or exploring her glitchier, chaotic side on “Vroom Vroom”, Charli’s success comes from her work both in and out of pop music’s formulaic lane. Born Charlotte Aitchison in 1992 in Cambridge to Scottish and Gujarati Indian parents, she took up songwriting at 14, lifting her stage name from her instant messenger handle. On the strength of her MySpace uploads and performances at London raves, she landed a record deal at 18, released the modestly successful darkwave cuts “Stay Away” and “Nuclear Seasons”, and then hit the big time with 2012’s kiss-off anthem “I Love It”. Originally scrapped from her own album for being too poppy, the beat-pounding re-recording by Swedish duo Icona Pop quickly became a worldwide dance-floor favourite. Her goth-tinged debut album, 2013’s True Romance, and tracks like the psychedelic, Gold Panda-sampling “You (Ha Ha Ha)” soon positioned Charli as the missing link between Grimes’ freak scene, Lorde’s dark melodies and Carly Rae Jepsen’s sweetness. But while that album and its follow-up, 2014’s synth-poppy Sucker, brought Charli a few steps closer to mainstream approval, she found more creative freedom among the esoteric, hyperpop wilds of 2016’s Vroom Vroom EP and 2017’s twin mixtapes, Number 1 Angel and Pop 2. While stardom eluded her, Charli built a track record as a prolific songwriter and collaborator, penning standard pop hits for Iggy Azalea (“Fancy”) and Selena Gomez (“Same Old Love”), and working with the likes of Lil Yachty, David Guetta and BTS. Yet Charli shines brightest when she’s illuminating, breaking down and even critiquing the industry that gives her acclaim. In 2020, a year after the release of her eclectic, star-studded third album, Charli, she released the intimate how i’m feeling now, an album written in six weeks during the pandemic with input from fans alongside extensive, real-time video diaries and notes. Two years later, she experimented with the act of selling out on her fourth album, CRASH, using her major record label’s A&R expertise to write the mainstream pop record she’d always been afraid to release. That album’s success, coupled with a prominent feature (“Speed Drive”) on 2023’s blockbuster Barbie soundtrack, brought Charli closer than ever to worldwide appeal. But her response was to turn back to the sounds that inspired her to make music in the first place. Her 2024 album, BRAT, is a homage to those riotous, sweaty London clubs of her youth, and an introspective—if not slightly ironic—look at her pop music journey, one riddled with head-empty euphoria (“Club classics”), dominating swagger (“Von dutch”) and sombre sentimentality (“I think about it all the time”).

FROM
Great Britain
BORN
2 August 1992
GENRE
Pop

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