Charli xcx: Music, Fashion, Film review – slippery search into selfhood that hits just as hard as Brat

(Atlantic) How do you follow up the album that made you a star – and a caricature?

In classic Charli style: with a pivot to guitar and a meta masterpiece about the instability of identity After a decade spent trailblazing a unique kind of pop freedom from the genre’s fringes, A-list success seemed like the thing that might finally trap Charli xcx .

Her 2024 club-rat opus Brat spawned memes, embarrassing political bandwagoning, Collins’ word of the year and possibly terminal damage to the bra industry.

Its ludicrous cultural impact looked set to pickle her as a caricature of a Parliament-toting bad girl; the question of whether “Brat summer” could last – whether Charli could sustain the interest – was so rife she turned it into a mockumentary, The Moment .

It made success look miserable: your creation turned cringe by execs wanting to milk their prize cow dry of every last acid-green drop. Even for a pop star renowned for reinvention, it put a higher price on her next move.

Pivot and risk losing new fans and looking wilfully contrarian. When Charli released the sub-two-minute single Rock Music , many heard it as a middle finger. “I think the dancefloor is dead,” she drawls over guit

References

• Original
  Charli xcx: Music, Fashion, Film review – slippery search into selfhood that hits just as hard as Brat