Amid the ‘Brat Summer’ era, the symbiotic relationship between music and culture could not be more apparent.
An increasing obsession with neon green and a fixation with club culture is characteristic of the current ‘Brat Summer’ aesthetic, based on the new Charli XCX album, Brat.
However, ‘Brat’ is not the only album that has influenced the formation of our culture’s niche aesthetics. Album eras have affected the masses for years.
The idea of album eras and the ways people consume albums in their identities have become more apparent recently. With social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram, the aesthetics of certain albums and the romanticization of their themes have spread like rapid-fire. These have materialized into the phrase “I’m in my _____ era.”
Last summer we saw the cultural impact of Beyonce’s Rennaissance and Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour. This summer, Brat, has taken over the narrative.
The Relationship between Music and Culture
In the digital age, media like music is at the forefront of our consumption. Music is a way for people to express their identities. We listen to music we like and identify with, whether it be specific genres or artists. Many also take pride in their specific music identity, and music taste can be a point of pride for many.
The connection between music and identity has been intertwined throughout history. The history of music and its influence on youth and subcultures can be traced back to 1950s and 60s Britain. This era of history saw the birth of Mods, Rockers, and Hippies. These subcultures have directly impacted the music genres and cultures of today. These subcultures each had their own music genres, styles, and lifestyles associated with them.
Those who aligned with these subcultures took on full lifestyles depending on the cultures. There are similarities between these cultures and the idea of consuming an album era today.
The Origins of Album Eras
The idea of an ‘era’ is not a new concept for music artists at all. In current-day pop culture, the idea of an ‘era’ is closely aligned with an artist’s album cycle.
Madonna’s Eras
Madonna’s career heavily influences the way we understand album eras today. Throughout four decades of her music career, Madonna has reinvented herself over and over again with each album she releases. From The Material Girl Era to the Madame X Era, the pop icon inspires current-day artists to create defining aesthetics and attitudes for projects.
Madonna’s Like A Virgin Era boosted the artist to stardom, proving she would be a star. Following her tour and performances of the album, young girls started to emulate Madonna’s style. In a 2009 interview with Rolling Stone, she recalled,
“I played a small theater in Seattle, and girls had flap skirts on and tights cut off below their knees and lace gloves and rosaries and bows in their hair and big hoop earrings. I was like, “This is insane!””
Madonna has been given the title of a cultural icon for the way her career has transcended past music and into the cultural sphere. She is considered a performance artist as much as she is a singer. She recently concluded her The Celebration Tour, in which she performed retrospectively, highlighting the different eras she has embodied in her career.
David Bowie’s Eras
David Bowie is also credited with influencing the idea of album eras. Throughout his career, Bowie took on various personas like Ziggy Stardust, Alladin Sane, and Thin White Duke. Bowie’s eras took on full characters, with the Ziggy Stardust era accompanying his 1972 album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars. Bowies fashion and style during his eras significantly influenced style and culture in ways still seen today.
Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust era only lasted a year, with Bowie taking on the Alladian Sane persona in 1973. He explained the reason for this era change in an interview with Rolling Stone. “I didn’t want to be trapped in this Ziggy character all my life. And I guess what I was doing on Aladdin Sane, I was trying to move into the next area – but using a rather pale imitation of Ziggy as a secondary device.”
Elements of a Good Era
An artist’s era can have significant cultural effects and influence when executed well. Especially in the digital age, music and culture are completely intertwined and are constantly impacting each other. One of the most important elements that make an album stand out is how entertaining it is. The more entertained people feel by music, the more likely they are to consume the art.
In a paper written by Daniela Petrušić, she argues “A modern, consumer society based on mass communication has imposed new obligations on culture. The demand of the public and users is increasingly moving toward a kind of combination of art and entertainment, toward the entertainment industry of the mass media.”
Later in the same paper, Petrušić claims “today, the function of music is much more than pure entertainment, because music, due to its far-reaching distribution possibilities, determined by the sound environment and as such has a significant impact on an individuals psyche, behavior and way of thinking. Music in multimedia is a reliable and tested instrument which in many ways influences the perception. Its effects must be carefully considered because music creates emotions, attracts attention, conveys both implicit and explicit messages, and helps people keep information.”
Consumerism is one of the central parts of current social life. Because of this, music artists’ eras are dependent on how easily they are to consume. The best eras in the current-day music industry are the ones that allow fans to fully immerse themselves in the music, aesthetics, and messages created by the artist. This also allows fans to have visibility for their favorite artists, whether it be directly by buying merch or indirectly by replicating certain aesthetics in their everyday lives.
Taylor Swift and Her Eras
Taylor Swift is one of the artists who has used her various album eras to increase the consumerability of her music. Throughout her career, she has had very definite eras, including the Red Era, the Reputation Era, and the Folklore/Evermore Era. Her aesthetics for each of these eras differ dramatically, there is no way anyone would confuse which era is which. This also makes it easier for her fans to express which era is their favorite, as certain elements are easy to replicate and recognizable.
Swift has also celebrated these eras with her The Eras Tour. While Swift releases ‘Taylor’s Verison’ of her old albums, she is reintroducing these eras of the past into a modern cultural scene, giving them a second chance to influence society with an even more heightened career and fanbase.
The Success of the Brat Era
Even before the release of ‘Brat’ on June 9, the album had already been making cultural impacts since Charli XCX announced the album’s release on February 28. The simple graphic and neon green color have proven themselves to be easily replicable.
While Brat was not initially met with praise, and many called the album cover lazy, The cultural conversation around Brat has had a complete 360 since its release in June. However, this initial discussion allowed Brat to take a front seat in the conversation surrounding the commodification of women in music. This was a clear sign Brat could create a cultural impact upon its release as the aesthetic and message of the album were already being discussed before its release.
The party girl aesthetic blended with personal reflection has connected with many this summer. As Charli XCX fans embraced the album and its aesthetic, major consumer brands started to take note, centering their advertisement around Brat and its aesthetic in hopes of connecting with consumers. It has been seemingly impossible to avoid consuming Brat-themed media in all aspects of life this summer.
The aesthetic of Brat has gone as far as influencing the United States Presidential Election. Vice President Kamala Harris has become the subject of Brat-themed edits on social media apps like TikTok. Charli XCX herself has even tweeted “Kamala IS brat.” Some argue that the way Brat has become so mainstream that it has reached the campaign efforts of a presidential candidate signifies the ‘watering down’ of the era. However, it is also argued that this correlation represents the deep interconnectivity of culture and society.
Marketing of Brat
Brat has also been praised as having one of the best album rollouts in recent memory. The success of an album release is vital for its cultural impact as it is detrimental to the time spent discussing and consuming the project. Charli sampled many of the future tracks on Brat in her Boiler Room set before the album was even announced. The recent release of Guess featuring Billie Eilish comes as conversations surrounding the ‘end’ of Brat summer emerged online. By keeping the album relevant throughout many consecutive months, Charli has taken over the summer.
Charli XCX has been in the music industry for over a decade, and Brat is her eighth studio album. Charli’s name has been in the pop culture sphere due to her hits like Vroom Vroom, Fancy with Iggy Azelia, I Love It with Icona Pop and Boom Clap featured in The Fault in Our Stars. Charli has always been considered a cult classic artist with a dedicated fan base. She never fully achieved the title of being a household name, but this might be changing after Brat. Brat has completely changed that narrative, where Charli XCX is so intertwined with current culture. It would be hard to imagine anyone who hasn’t heard the name Charli XCX or Brat following this summer.
Check out these articles for more on Brat:
Define Brat Summer – In Charli xcx’s and Our Words
The Biggest Album of the Summer: Brat
There have been countless albums and album eras that have left their mark on pop culture and society in history. Without the impact of music, there would be no culture in the way we currently know it. It would be impossible to list every album and artist that has left a significant mark on culture.
