So you may ask yourself, What is brat summer? What does it mean to be brat? To the pre-Charli xcx standards, a brat would be a girl that is rude, or a harsher word could be used in extreme cases. But after June 7, 2024, when Charli xcx released her sixth studio album “BRAT”, to be a brat is a somewhat of an unexplainable lifestyle for young women. A little bit of womanhood, messy emotions, partying, all done with infinite cool-girl style. Maybe it’s just the color lime green or oversized sunglasses. Maybe it’s taking a fashion risk walking around your hometown, low rise jeans, or smudged mascara but still looking effortlessly chic. In some ways, brat summer is a feeling from within.
The album calls back to somewhat of a lost art: early 2000s house music. Brat would not be complete without its crunchy beats on tracks like “365” and “Club classics”. To call these pieces, “songs”, would be an understatement. Rather, they are a testament to the nostalgic 2000s dance music that has somewhat been lost in the recent popularity of lyric driven songs, songs that were clear with what they were talking about most of the time: sex. Charli xcx approaches her songwriting in an upfront simple fashion, in the best way. There are no deep analogies or anything too hard to understand, just clear lyrics that are easy to understand. Each song feels like an easy, most of the time, fun, conversation that Charli is having with her audience.
This style has been something that the younger generation has been craving from mainstream female artists: fun, dance, jump around, music. Yes, it has been done by Charli’s male counterparts in the hip-hop and rap scene, and done by much smaller female artists, but not by a woman in the mainstream music space in a very long time. Bringing this old style back to the mainstream media is one of the soul reasons Charli xcx is becoming a pop icon before our eyes.
This level of icon was a build up for Charli xcx. She has not always been this sought after trend setting pop girl, she has been somewhat of an underdog. Although her 2013 feature on Icona Pop’s song “Love it” has nearly a billion streams, surprisingly that song did not shoot her to Taylor Swift or Billie Eilish level of overnight success, even though the song has become somewhat of a classic careless girl anthem. On the album, Charli questions if her fame has been taken seriously in the past on “I might say something stupid”. This may be Charli’s time.
This fame has even reached the White House with the Vice President, and presumed Democratic Presidential candidate, Kamala Harris playing into her own “bratness” in her presidential campaign. Harris changed her “X” header to the recognizable font of the album, saying “kamala” is a smart move for the campaign considering prior to President Biden dropping out of the race, young voters between 18- 30 were not fully on board with the President. With Charli backing Harris in a July 21, 2024 “X” post saying “kamala IS brat”, young voters are turning to the candidate. Harris playing into this new trend geared towards the younger generation may help her beat her opponent: Former president Trump. According to a Newsweekly poll, Harris is beating Trump by 20% among 18-34 year olds, a critical age bracket to win the election. Harris leaning into her cool girl style for her campaign is brat.
Brat is also marking another shift: away from the “Clean Girl aesthetic”. The Clean Girl aesthetic has dominated TikTok since the summer of 2022, overtaking everything from hairstyles to night time routines. To be a clean girl it means to look effortlessly put together. Hair in a claw clip, minimalistic clothes, candles constantly lit, you get the idea. The Brat movement is quite literally the opposite. We have already seen the clean girls switching over to a more, arguably, comfortable lifestyle: a brat lifestyle.
For Charli xcx “Brat” is marking a revolution in her career of finally getting the recognition she deserves. She has been making brat equivalent music for over a decade, but she is just now getting the accolades for it. She is finally getting that mainstream success. But as we have seen time and time again, the music industry will turn against successful women. We have seen this with Taylor Swift, Oliva Rodrigo, Miley Cyrus, and countless other pop girls. The next question is, will the world get sick of Brat?
