The boring death of Charli XCX’s ‘Brat’ has become more tedious than ‘Brat’ itself
Charli XCX is the definition of a complete and utter sham. There, I said it.
I am almost too well aware of how this is not going to win me any favours among her so-called party girl, ‘365’ energy, Duracell bunny-like fans, but do you know what? Bring on the fire. I’ve had enough of holding my tongue. The time has long since passed to call her out for being the grifter that she truly is.
Two summers ago, the lime green neon lights of Brat burst onto the scene, and a revolution undoubtedly began. Suddenly, with Charli as the overlord, every level of club dancing, drug-sniffing, and alcohol overconsumption was back in vogue. Of course, no one’s blind to the fact that there’s an element of parody to all of this. But it was only funny for all of roughly a month at best.
Let’s not forget: Charli – God, how cringy I find it to refer to her as just Charli, as if she deserves to be hailed like Prince – was the most mediocre of all mediocre pop stars for the longest time. When you actually remember some of the abominations she was responsible for during the years of 2015 to around 2023, it doesn’t exactly make for happy listening.
In this sense, you can hardly blame the woman for jumping at the chance of a complete artistic rebrand. But now, when she’s mercilessly still chasing that bandwagon even when it’s running on fumes, it only reeks of desperation. Is she scared that doing such a sonic pivot has flown her far too close to the sun? Or is it that she just wants to milk her rare glimpse of success for every penny it’s worth?
“You just don’t get it,” I hear from the petty, indignant whines through the screen. “Brat was all about the irony, and she’s made a show of killing it now, so she’s obviously not clinging on.” Yeah, sure. It’s probably worth casting our minds back to the fact that her first shtick of supposedly ‘killing Brat’ emerged during the summer at her Coachella performance.
“At last,” I silently breathed at the time, in pure fear of being throttled by anyone who heard me being glad it was over. But yet here we are, on the cusp of six months later, and she’s still here peddling the same old shit lines. No, Charli was never really killing Brat – she was just moving it on to its next money-making machine.
Consider that this very conveniently happens to line up with the promotional tour and release of her new project, The Moment: an entire film based on the sole notion of killing Brat, God forbid. If just one thing is certain, whenever any other artist in future is accused of a last-ditch money grab, they can attribute everything they know to the Charli XCX school of milking it.
Don’t be fooled, either. The whole ruse about The Moment being a satirical take on the music industry and her own success will not somehow convince me that her heart is in the right place. Why is it that the vast majority of other artists get a year to 18 months of shelf life to promote their albums, even the most successful ones, and yet here she is still now creating more and more failing shoots off the same dying tree?
There’s no denying that Charli and her management have had their visions clouded by a green tinge of a different variety from the original genesis of Brat. This time, it’s the cash signs. As soon as the film got announced, it immediately felt both overtired and overindulgent. But with the reviews being lukewarm, to put it kindly, it may have finally come back to bite them.
Ironically, this may actually be the moment where Brat gives its final, gasping breaths, but not for lack of effort from the singer to push it just a few miles more. If only fans would wake up to the fact that the idea of killing Brat is simply a new marketing ploy to give her success a second wind before she has to finally return to the drawing board.
You could argue that Charli’s upcoming soundtrack album for Wuthering Heights is the first suggestion of a new seedling to grow, but when you actually listen to the songs and realise that they are more or less just a repurposed Brat with the occasional reference to lusting after Heathcliff thrown in to keep it relevant, that theory falls flat.
This is all down to the fact that, intentionally or otherwise, every time you hear that monosyllabic computerised cadence come through the speaker from now on, you’re only going to be able to think of one thing. Charli has, without a doubt, made a massive rod for her own back. But my sneaking suspicion is that she’s been aware of this for the whole campaign, and is just playing into the pretension of the longest frivolous moment of all time, for as long as the algorithms still continue to work in her favour.
It’s sad because I genuinely believed we were smarter than this. I thought, despite all its flaws, social media had taught us to be a bit more savvy in terms of spotting an advertisement and when we are being conned.
But no; Charli exhibits that we can still be as stupefied as we ever were, blinded into submission by nothing more than a strobe light and the impression of having a good time. In a way, you have to hand it to her for that level of brazen arse-licking she’s cultivated in her fans.
All hail Charli XCX: the true grifter, money-maker, and ultimate flogger of dead horses. Bow down to our Brat capitalist queen.
