I Still Think About It All the Time

Since it came out in June, I’ve been living, eating, and breathing Brat—less by choice than by compulsion. Here are my findings, in no particular order:

• I was worried about Brat summer for a while. (Ridiculous sentence to type.) After Charli tweeted “Kamala IS brat” and the MTA used an “it’s the same but it’s not” meme to self-own the G-train shutdown. After seemingly every e-commerce marketing manager found a way to shoehorn a Charli reference into an email subject line. After National Geographic gave “OG brat girls” like Cleopatra—the queen of the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt until 30 A.D.—the listicle treatment. After Lena Dunham wrote whatever this is. After vomit-flavored neon-green experienced a peak, previously only achieved during Nickelodeon’s early-’90s heyday of slime and gak. And yes, after my former place of employment got bratty and declared Brat summer to be over (to which Charli said: “oh???”). Alas, the album is too good to be spoiled by the internet. Fall came, the Sweat Tour started, and we were back to enjoying Brat without the self-consciousness of it feeling somehow passé.
• Brat gained Charli a lot of new fans, but it resonated so hard with her diehard Angels because it’s the most unabashedly Charli of all her albums (sorry, Charli). The record builds on and refines various facets of her discography and persona, arriving as the culmination of more than a decade’s worth of pop experimentation. Her second major-label album, 2014’s Sucker, was a pop-rock record with more bark than bite, but the snarl of the title feels proto-Brat to me. There’s a bit of the sonic mischief from the Sophie-produced Vroom Vroom EP in there, along with the ambition and embrace of an album-length arc from Pop 2, and the vulnerable club-pop of her pandemic album, How I’m Feeling Now. Some visual themes—like the gaze of the paparazzi, as seen in the “Von Dutch” video—seem carried over from 2022’s Crash. That was her concerted effort to Be a Pop Star, and the theme of pop voyeurism can be felt in the Crash album cover too: Charli in a bikini, her head bloody from bashing in the windshield, photographed from the driver’s seat.

• Crash kinda flopped, huh? Not literally—it went silver in the UK, debuted at No. 7 on the Billboard album chart in the U.S.—but spiritually. It was her attempt at radio-friendliness, a chance to prove that 2014’s chart-topping double shot of “Boom Clap” and “Fancy” weren’t commercial flukes. Charli has long walked the line between underground dance music and major-label pop; as is common in the latter, Crash was like a sampler platter of contemporary electronic-pop styles (Drive soundtrack synthwave, Y2K pop, ’90s Euro house, disco revivalism via Dua Lipa). Most of it sounded pretty one-note coming from the woman who once gave us Pop freaking 2 (though the song “Yuck” slaps). Charli knows this, too. As she told New York magazine, talking about Crash’s first single: “Do I want to be singing ‘Good Ones’ forever? Personally, no. Those songs don’t get me off as much.” The sharp difference in quality between Crash and Brat is proof that being the MOST yourself (i.e., deliciously evil but, like, super complicated) will always be a better look than watering yourself down for the masses.
• Do you remember when Kanye kept updating The Life of Pablo in the weeks following its release? No one really needed that, but it still led to interesting conversations about what constitutes a “finished album” if it can be updated at any time. In a different way (stay with me here), Brat and It’s Completely Different But Also Still Brat challenges ideas about album campaigns and narratives by throwing open the doors to Club Brat for Charli’s pals, some four months after the original shooketh the world. Ms. XCX adds enough new verses and sonic ideas to fully transform some of these songs, even when—like on “Sympathy Is a Knife” featuring Ariana Grande—she’s not singing lead. There are a few truly “wow” guests here but the two that sent me—Bon Iver and Julian Casablancas—both utilize interpolations of ’80s hits (“Nick of Time” for BI, who just can’t quit Bonnie Raitt, and Yes’ “Owner of a Lonely Heart” for JC). Anyway, my favorite remix is Caroline Polachek’s Radiohead-meets-opera take on “Everything Is Romantic,” which is more like a super creative cover that happens to include Caroline and Charli kiki’ing in the beginning. But who’s to say the best remix has even been released yet? Just yesterday, Charli dropped tardy queen Kesha’s version of “Spring Breakers.”

• Charli is often driving fast or jetting off somewhere to dodge real-life problems within the world of her songs. In “Apple,” she longs for the airport amid observations about intergenerational trauma and mom issues. (I am going to guess she is an avoidant.) All this talk of trains, planes, and automobiles is fairly common in pop, and it strikes me as an effective way to signify how quickly life changes in these realms: Success can be measured in how much time one spends in the air, flying to and from shows, shoots, and random celebrity bullshit like a Skims campaign.  
• Brat taps into indie sleaziness in a way that feels authentic because it’s Charli returning to her roots as a rave-going, Ed Banger-loving teen in London during the Myspace era. She’s been around so long that she’s back where she started, essentially. “Von Dutch” sent a shiver down my spine—the song’s great, but I immediately thought of a Von Dutch trucker hat on Ashton Kutcher circa 2004, and all of the toxicity embodied by pop culture in the early aughts came rushing back (my cross to bear as a mid-millennial woman). The paparazzi theme of the video is reminiscent of that “leave Britney alone” era as well, while the “360” clip leans into an NYC-specific strain of sleaze by casting and referencing downtown-NYC “it girls” with either a nostalgia factor or a Dimes Square connection, like Chloë Sevigny and Julia Fox. “Mean Girls” is rumored to be about the actress, podcaster, and noted Catholic Dasha Nekrasova, which is indie sleaze but I’m not entirely sure why; honestly, I don’t think the revival is all that discerning as far as historical accuracy goes. It’s vibes, babe. It’s flash-drenched party pics, getting a flower arrangement of cigarettes from Rosalía on your b’day. Beats that make you feel filthy, rich, and European. Patent leather boots up to the thigh, hair down to the waist, never a bra.  

• Missing from the Brat discourse is the role of brats in BDSM. In the kink realm, brats are kinda like submissives in denial. Resistant, tussling for control, impatient for gratification, generally a pain in the ass to their dominant. Basically the opposite of being a good girl for daddy. Playing the brat is fun, but seeing “brat tamer” on a Feeld profile is a red flag. The dynamic just has to be right. 
• The Sweat Tour could be called the Twinks and the Girls Who Love Them Tour. I’m obsessed with the fact that Charli—never one for elaborate dance routines and back-up squads—moves like a civilian while also co-headlining with a pop star whose main mission seems to be thirst-trapping by way of choreo. Troye Sivan is flanked by gorgeous male dancers approximately 75 percent of the time, and he simulated oral sex with at least one of them at the New York show last month. For a guy who’s constantly showing off his abs, he really can dance. This frees Charli up to do what she does best, in terms of stage presence: stomp down imaginary runways showing off her looks (I counted five, the best one being a New York Post Lou Reed T-shirt and no pants), and yell the word “bitch” more frequently than any queen I know. She’s constantly demanding that her fans dance—and makes arenas feel like raves—but she moves like a mix between: a) someone in their bedroom using pop music to play dress-up, ecstatic (see also: drugs) and flailing about, and b) a girl at the club whose feet gotta hurt in those boots.

• Charli’s commitment to wearing large sunglasses at all times is rivaled only by The Devil Who Wears Prada; hopefully the latter will retire soon and the crown can go to the House of XCX, where it belongs. 
• Brat green is Pantone 3507-C. “For me it just felt like the most WRONG out of all the options we had,” Charli told Architectural Digest. “The most off, the most uncomfortable, the most disorientating. And that’s why I chose it.” Apparently the album cover took five months to workshop, and the designer considered 500 different shades of green as a backdrop to the low-res, sans-serif “brat.” Charli has had her face on every other album cover, an expectation she once called misogynistic, so that green is doing a lot of work as an avatar for Ms. XCX: messy, brash, very online, just not for everyone.
• The cover of Weezer’s Green album is somewhere around Pantone 2299-C. To the naked eye, it’s pretty similar to Brat, perhaps even a smidge slimier. Which is funny to me, because in 2003 my parents let me take my Green CD to Lowe’s and then actually painted my bedroom that color. I was 14, at the height of my Weezer fandom. (I had a brat summer while I was technically still a brat.) I like to imagine there’s a young Charli fan doing this now, and some very understanding parents aiding their obsession.

• Just curious, are we going to have a new go-to color every summer now? Perhaps coinciding with the release of a pop culture product that temporarily takes over the zeitgeist? Barbie puked hot pink all over everything last summer, Brat inspired the lime green wave this year. Can someone make tangerine a thing in 2025? Having Charli involved would just be tradition at this point. 
• Charli’s portion of the Sweat Tour reminded me a little of Rosalía’s Motomami shows in that you sometimes felt like you were watching the filming of a music video. A small crew follows Charli around as she plays directly to the camera. There’s a cage underneath the stage that she throws herself against, posing like an America’s Next Top Model hopeful. Dear god I hope she uses the footage of her and Lorde strutting down the catwalk arm in arm for something.

• Speaking of America’s Next Top Model: Those David LaChapelle photos for New York? It’s giving early-ANTM photo shoot, with intensely specific settings like an ambulance? With a severed hand? Either way, it’s incredibly campy, which is on-brand for Charli (and David LaChapelle).
• Self-aware merch alert: The Brat green Ikea-sized plastic tote bag on sale at the Sweat Tour. Perfect for schlepping weeks of dirty laundry to the drop-off service (and rewarding yourself with a little ciggy). 
• I was too embarrassed to wear my Brat green Crocs to the NYC tour stop—is that like wearing a band’s shirt to their show?—but that was silly. Probably half of the crowd was decked out in the snot-flavored hue. Others wore homemade tees with lyrics like “call 999 for a good time” scrawled on them in Sharpie. Please enjoy this video of the crowd outside Madison Square Garden after the show; unsurprisingly, the “Apple” dance broke out.

• No offense to George Daniel’s previous work, but Brat made Charli’s fiancé a thing. He co-produced and co-wrote a few great songs on the album, like “Apple” and “Club Classics,” but it’s the shoutout on the latter that cemented his lore. “I wanna dance with George,” she says, and even if you don’t know who George is, you know he’s important. (I found it amusing that The Face used that lyric as a headline on an interview with George about his new dance-music label and solo DJ career.) He was definitely the second-most known member of the 1975 before Brat, but Matty Healy takes up so much oxygen that silver doesn’t account for all that much. Anyway, good for George.
• In “Everything Is Romantic,” Charli sings about peering Ca-pri and Pom-pei in the distance, from “a place that’ll make you change (fall in love again and again).” I wonder where she and George stayed on the Amalfi Coast of southern Italy, where they could see both the isle of Capri and the ruins of Pompeii. Sorrento is my best guess, maybe near the historic Bagni Regina Giovanna (more ruins and stunning cove swimming). I could probably scroll back through Charli’s Instagram and find clues in old photo dumps, but I’d rather write fan fic about it.
• Sorry, but I’m not buying the story that “Sympathy Is a Knife” isn’t about running into Taylor Swift backstage during the 15 (highly publicized) minutes she dated Healy last year. But Angels: be chill. Don’t yell “Taylor Swift is dead!” at Charli shows. Can’t a girl just feel paranoid about the world’s biggest pop star in peace? 

• I recently texted a friend this gross oversimplification of the current pop identity sphere: “Chappell Roan is queer pop made by a queer person that straight people listen to, Charli is queer pop made by a straight person that queer people listen to, and Sabrina Carpenter is frighteningly heterosexual.”
• That said, I would like to thank Kyle MacLachlan for being such a vocal Charli XCX fan throughout the entire campaign. The actor was the first Adult I saw online to lip-sync and meme his way through multiple Brat songs. Sad to report that Agent Cooper is useless at the “Apple” dance, though.
• Also kinda useless at the “Apple” dance: me! After a summer’s worth of watching people perform the dance online, I thought it’d be easy. The beginning is actually hard to execute at full speed, which makes the driving bit at the end even more satisfying. My boyfriend’s wife taught us the dance while we were on vacation in Budapest in August, mostly club-hopping, vintage shopping, and hitting the thermal baths. We practiced for 10 minutes max, did the dance together in full once, never filmed it, never repeated it. It was not even at the club, just our high-ceilinged Airbnb, half-dressed after showers.

• One of my best friends’ partners is obsessed with this celebrity gossip aggregator that looks like it was made on GeoCities roughly 25 years ago, and it’s become a staple to hear about thirdhand. Recently there was a Crazy Days and Nights blind item: “The foreign-born initialed singer is going to be dead by the end of her tour. No one can do this much coke.” I think Charli would get a kick out of this rumor. If not: please don’t shoot the messenger!
• The “Guess” remix with Billie Eilish is interesting because it is cheeky about its queerbaiting, and of course Billie has gone full stud in the style of a St. Lunatics member. But there is something a little galling about hearing her whisper, “Charli likes boys but she knows I’d hit it.” Creepy if it weren’t two female friends playing around? Yes. Then again, it mostly hits like a reminder: I’M VERY GAY, BUT CHARLI IS TRAGICALLY STRAIGHT.

• I’ve interviewed Charli three times over the last decade, including her classic Over/Under, where she called Pitchfork overrated. One time she spontaneously made a song out of my name that was pretty catchy (main hook: “J-j-j-jillian”). I bring this up to say: She’s always been a brat IRL. You never know what you’re gonna get: a charming angel, or an embodiment of the knife emoji. If Charli’s been media trained, she’s willfully forgotten the rules. It’s part of why she’s the ideal pop star.
• Charli sings the word “back” 84 times in a row as a bridge of sorts on “B2b,” then another 86 times at the end of the song. The constant utterance of the word—especially when syncopated with the beat, underscored by a synth of doom, or cloaked in steamy breath—made this borderline-mind-numbing club banger my most-listened-to track on Brat. Charli is talking about a love triangle, going back to a man who might go back to someone else; she’s wondering if it’s the right move, but either direction seems to involve a backslide. My own reasons for clinging to this feeling of looking forward and back stem from being laid off in January, then “building muscle up” (as Charli says) in order to make something new (this very website). The tension between the memory of what was and the hope of what could be was overwhelming at times, the self-sabotage running high; I often related to the line “I don’t want to feel feelings,” which hits like a comedown spiral outside the club. Sometimes the simplest things just connect.
• Bowen Yang’s Charli XCX talk show sketch on SNL looks like it takes place in the same universe as Zoolander. It is fine. Nice touch with the Loewe belt (one of Charli’s favorite brands) and casting Jean Smart as NYC party-girl legend Susanne Bartsch, though.

• Brat is an entire world built by an attitude, and a peek behind the curtain of that same fantasy. This is extremely hard for an artist to pull off. Charli is both larger than life and completely vulnerable. She’s basically having an anxiety attack coked out at the club, spiraling through fears about her career, her life, the ticking time bomb of potential motherhood—but she gets through it and even has a little fun. The album ends on a slightly ambiguous note with the hardest-core club track, “365.” Now she’s not just a brat party girl from all angles, she’s a brat party girl every damn day of the year. It’s tiring, one must imagine, raving every night, smoking that many Parliaments, drinking that many vod-sods, generally bumpin’ that.
• I exit Brat wondering: Will Charli slow down and have a kid as she considers near the end of the album? Her career perhaps no longer feels “so small in the existential scheme of it all,” as she mumbled on “I Think About It All the Time.” This is her moment, her apex, her reward. Hopefully she’ll take Brat—and the rest of her stacked catalog—to arenas around the world next year on her own, headline festivals, and wreak havoc on the mainstream institutions she both turns her nose up at and seeks approval from (your move, Recording Academy). But that’s the fun of being a Charli XCX fan: watching what happens next with a true chaos agent behind the wheel.