Last June, Charli XCX dropped brat and kicked off an entire summer dedicated to the fab nonchalant party girl energy that bred the Grammy-winning album. Belovedly known as brat summer, it was a moment when the rest of the world caught up with the Essex-raised pop pioneer’s genius. More than a decade into her career, Charli and her brat pack made it to the front and center of mainstream culture.
The artist, who just killed two back-to-back weekends on Coachella’s main stage and is embarking on her headlining arena tour supporting the album, got candid about her newly minted commercial success and revealed she’s “not ready” to let go of the era.
“It’s really hard to let go of brat and let go of this thing that is so inherently me and become my entire life, you know?” she stated in a makeup-free clip posted on TikTok. “And I started thinking about culture and the kind of ebbs and flows of the lifespan of things and how when you get a level of success, you can kind of become oversaturated and then people want you to disappear, which I understand.”
The “Von Dutch” singer said, “I’m actually sort of a believer in that because I think it allows artists to retain their cool when they’re so in everyone’s faces and then they vanish.”
Other stars like Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, and Lorde have wiped their social feeds clean before diving into a new musical era, but Charli admitted that she’s “fascinated” by the “tension of staying too long.”
Charli went on to explain that the album’s songs, concept, marketing, and “visual identity” have been on her mind since 2022, when she dropped Crash, her last album under her previous contract with Warner Records.
“I’ve been sat there on my own for two years prior thinking about how I’m gonna communicate this record to the world,” she said.
As for Charli receiving her flowers after years of building musical worlds and pushing pop culture forward, she opened up about her experience transitioning from underdog to Main Pop Girl.
“I also find it interesting that you’re kind of like this underdog, and then you go on this journey of success, and people are on it with you, and then you reach this new level of success. Some people are very happy for you, but other people are then like, ‘Actually, wait, no, you must be stupid. You must be a vessel for other people’s ideas. Otherwise, how would you have done this, you silly woman?’” she shared. “And I’m like, my God, I wish it was like that, because then it would be easier to just let go. I wouldn’t care.”
Fans echoed her sentiment in her comments section, writing, “Brat Summer doesn’t end, it just evolves,” and “brat summer has turned into brat life.” Another person cheekily added, “If Mariah Carey sings the same song every Christmas, we can have Brat every summer😏,” to which Charli herself responded, “ok wow i never thought about it like this.”
Consider this our official petition for brat summer to go on for eternity, TYSM.
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