Slime green, four letters in an Arial font, heavy synths, and an autotuned British voice repeating “bumping that” fashion a strangely satisfying style. This is the consonance from Charli XCX’s sixth studio album – BRAT – that vocalizes the summer of 2024 like a tramp stamp on the internet. So, they call it, “Brat Summer.”
Brat Summer isn’t a term born by accident. Summer, by the digital age’s default, followed an adjective-noun formula. Like “Hot Girl Summer” by Megan Thee Stallion, which basked us in femininity and deserted all male criticisms. It was an easy-to-pick-up idea, an all-embracing anthem, and an emphatic expression.
But Charli XCX took this movement a step further with an album. She translated her vision of summer into an amplification of 15 songs (18 songs if you favor ‘Brat and it’s the same but there are three more songs so it’s not’ and 21 songs if you include the remixes). Her deviation from a singular expression is destined for all kinds of possibilities out there.
Charli XCX’s words
“The word is very brutalist,” Charli XCX gave her impression of BRAT in Emma Chamberlain’s podcast. She envisioned her album through “this girl who like goes to a rave and she’s wearing a tank top, and you can kinda see her nipples through it, and she’s like sweaty, but she’s hot; she’s like dancing with her friends.” Or, in a less personificative description, Charli XCX simply put it as “a club record” before the release.
Brat means rave
In February, she hosted the most RSVP’d Boiler Room in Brooklyn and named it “Party Girl,” starring A.G. Cook, George Daniel (learn about him), Addison Rae, and Julia Fox, whom you can later spot in BRAT one way or another.
“Yeah I wanna dance to me, I wanna dance with A.G
I wanna dance with George,”
she recites in “Club classics."
“Linked with Addison on Melrose
Bought some cute clothes and wrote in the studio,”
she sings in “The von dutch remix with addison rae and a.g. cook."
“I’m everywhere, I’m so Julia,”
she flexes in “360," the statement opening for BRAT.
Her doctrines are crystal evident in this constellation of lyricism: going out and being hot. And, of course, all done with her beloved mates.
Brat means vulnerability
Unadornedly and heartfeltly, Charli XCX shares an affection for relationships regardless of the type. The moments of sentiment, like “So, I” that she dedicates to her deceased friend SOPHIE and “Girl, so confusing” which articulates her inner conflict towards other females in the industry, speak to the deeper, and occasionally darker emotions.
As the subheadline from Rolling Stones writes,
Female pop stars have been lying to us about how they feel, and Charli is here to tell the truth.
Hannah Ewens
It’s true. When Charli XCX released the remix version of “Girl, so confusing” featuring Lorde, chanting the iconic catchphrase “Let’s work it out on the remix,” insecurities have never been mirrored so clearly in the music scene. In 3 minutes and 26 seconds, the two pop stars exchange hidden thoughts almost confrontationally and, undeniably, vulnerably, singing about miscommunication, self-doubt, and reconciliation.
Charli XCX steers her BRAT narratives across the list of emotions to reach genuine conversations, with others and self.
Her voice lets self-consciousness and confidence co-exist. BRAT validates this multifaceted nature of women (and of every being regardless of gender). One minute of maternal crisis follows a cigarette, and another minute of jealousy follows a glass of wine in the club. What Charli xcx practices is what she preaches.
Brat means versatility
The sense of mélange follows through and returns to its playful core. “I kind of wanted it to go on this journey of a night out, where I’m imagining I’m in like this superclub and every door I go through is a different room in the club, and the room sounds slightly different,” in an episode of Tape Notes, Charli XCX sits down and walks through her visualization of “365.”
“There’s definitely a Daft Punk room in there,” she joked – probably not entirely.
Charli XCX’s blueprint is fluid in all forms through her offbeat romanticism and womanhood. This is to say, when we live in a Brat Summer, we also live in the projection of her artistry. She defined it effortlessly: “a pack of cigs, a Bic lighter, and a strappy white top with no bra.”
Words from the internet, you, and me
Brat Summer inherits volatility like its shade of green – it can be found everywhere. Charli XCX knew and pulled the internet trigger.
It starts with www.bratgenerator.com, an adaptation of the album cover for you to turn words and phrases into a lower-case, Arial font in a slimy green background, just like BRAT. So, followers hopped on. Some would type their names, some type lyrics, some type sublet information, and some type “looking for jobs,” using the same generator.
Just like that, Brat Summer detonates.
Nuances to you
Find anything green and call it a BRAT: traffic lights, uno cards, and matcha lattes. Or make everything BRAT: wear a green shirt, drink from a green water bottle, and use a green ball to play mini golf. I’m sure you will find more unexpected, wicked variations on social media.
Strikingly, there’s another part to this internet infiltration, that exists beyond plain sight. Every day, a notification or two would pop up on my phone from a group chat called “Brat Summer (followed by a green heart emoji)” with BRAT moments and objects my college friends find.
It is fortuitous to find that BRAT has kept these college graduates in touch with each other. We just graduated in May, and this is the summer they go on separate ways.
And to me
We crave unison at the season of departure. This notion has been rooted in my head since I finished college because I’ve always said bye to someone, to something at this time. It lives in our subconsciousness. And BRAT, an extension of the summer, provides a bit of relevancy for every person, occasion, and mood:
Enemy, lover, friend, icon, unborn child.
Club, drive home, mall, friend’s home, afterparty.
Excitement, grief, hedonism, jealousy, adoration.
BRAT encompasses all the inexplicable nuances in Charli XCX’s music that dominated this summer. But, if I can only use one sentence to describe Brat Summer, I will quote Charli XCX and say it can be luxurious or trashy. I reiterate not just for the duality of a woman but for the sake of romanticizing everything while you can.
