Brat on the big stage: Why isn’t Charli XCX headlining Glastonbury?
Last year, one of the most electric moments of the 2024 Glastonbury was the queue outside Levels at midnight on Friday night. Charli XCX was playing, and everyone knew the capacity was limited; the feverish drive for mud-caked patrons to get inside was unmatched. Capping off the month Brat was released and painted the world lime green, maybe we all thought that right there was the pinnacle of this cultural moment, but in the months and the next year to come. It only got more intense as the songwriter’s LP didn’t just infiltrate musical circles but enveloped the entire summer.
So it begs the question: With a ream of awards, a heap of praise, and a cultural swell behind her, why isn’t Charli XCX headlining the event this year?
Whenever a festival lineup is announced, there is always a chorus of voices shouting random opinions about who and what should be topping the bill — it’s part of the fun, after all. But the glaring lime green omission feels like a particularly potent misstep.
In recent years, can you think of another British artist who has captured the zeitgeist in the way Charli XCX did with Brat? With a single album, the singer catapulted from cult fame to something far beyond a household name. This was never just about the music. The singer, the record, and the raw, hedonistic energy surrounding it became a phenomenon—perfectly timed for a world craving exactly that. Brat isn’t just an album title; it’s a feeling. A one-syllable landmark of a cultural moment, as ‘Brat Summer’ cements itself in musical and social history, destined to live in infamy.
Other festivals have kept up with that, suddenly shooting Charli to headline status at events like Primavera and Laneway and dedicating an entire day to her at the new London festival, LIDO. However, as a thoroughly British artist who has always celebrated the UK scene, there is no pinnacle like Glastonbury.
If you’re going to mark a moment, the Pyramid Stage is the place to do it, with tens of thousands of people crammed into a once-apparently infinite space, screaming your songs or losing their minds in front of you. However, it often feels like Glastonbury themselves have forgotten that.
They used to be so good at listening in to the buzz and moving with it. When Arctic Monkeys were emerging, spearheading the power of the indie moment, the festival backed them early, letting them headline when they were still on the come up, rather than waiting. It was a move that paid off, not only establishing the band as bonafide stars but solidifying that fact. It was a moment where Glastonbury aligned with what was going on in music, beyond which act was biggest.
This year’s headliners, The 1975, Neil Young and Olivia Rodrigo, are three great picks, don’t get me wrong. However, all three of them lack a cultural moment like Charli XCX would bring to the stage. They are ‘safer bets’ though, with bigger names and broader mainstream awareness. The trio perhaps represent different facets of Glastonbury’s current clientele, with varying age groups likely favouring a different member of this year’s bill-topping triumvirate. But with tickets already sold out long before a line-up is ever announced, surely the festival has a chance to be bolder.
So, why is Charli XCX not headlining Glastonbury?
The question of why Charli XCX isn’t headlining is more complex than Glastonbury potentially not trusting she’s quite up to it or not wanting to take a risk. Countless logistical and organisational reasons could go behind it.
Perhaps one of the performer’s other headline slots demands a degree of exclusivity. Perhaps the artist herself wants to keep her biggest show for her LIDO date, where she’s curating an entire lineup alongside a list of her collaborators. Perhaps it even comes down to a question of whether Charli XCX’s set, with her various songs about illegal substances and general party girl antics, would work on the main stage given the BBC’s contract with showing the set live.
It might come down to the other acts. Olivia Rodrigo made an incredible first impression at the festival in 2022 on the Pyramid Stage, helping to cultivate a new, younger demographic for the festival to play into. Now much more famous and certainly much more expensive to book and with more power to demand the top of the bill, there was no way they were getting an artist of her size to play anything but the main stage, especially when she’d already graced it once with a growing array of sing-a-long hits. Meanwhile, Charli XCX has never hit the main stage, so perhaps the festival is keen on seeing people build up to it, even though watching her kick down the doors and dominate the top slot for the first time could have provided another iconic moment.
Perhaps it all comes down to vibes. The entire ethos of the Brat era is sweaty club culture. Her Levels set captured that perfectly as bodies were squished together, dancing as the immersive stage felt like being in a nightclub. That’s pretty impossible to achieve on the Pyramid stage, with around 120,000 people spread across a huge field and up onto a hill. Is it ‘Brat’ to be watching the set from miles away, maybe in a rain poncho, maybe with some kids running around next to you? It doesn’t feel like it, but as the Other Stage, where she is headlining, is slightly more contained, getting that energy right could work and provide a safe space for those looking to lose themselves.
There are so many possible reasons, and each one is as understandable as the next. Either way, there is no doubt that Charli XCX’s Other Stage headline slot will be a major moment across the weekend, certainly threatening to pull a good proportion of the young people crowd away from Neil Young’s set as a battle of the two camps; the ‘365 Party Girls’ and the fans of the ‘Old Man’.
