“Are you bumpin’ that?” “Why are you so julia?” “Kamala is so brat.” These are all phrases that have been all around social media this past summer. The average viewer would be confused by this phenomenon that somehow relates to politics in the news. Here is your full in depth guide to BRAT summer.
In 2008, Charli XCX released her first debut single, and a star was born. She didn’t have major success until her hit song “Boom Clap” was released and has now racked up more than 400 million streams on spotify. Five studio albums later, some mixtapes included, all have built up Charli XCX’s name. On February 28, 2024, she announced her upcoming album, BRAT. Later, her first single Von Dutch was released. A mix of electronic dance music and pop created this “hyper-pop” aesthetic for this song. The track opens with the lyrics “It’s okay to just admit that you’re jealous of me” adding to this self-confidence BRAT really promotes. Personally, this is one of my favorite tracks off the album as it is yet so simple, but very complex. One thing to mention about Charli XCX is that she uses autotune and she’s proud of it. She uses autotune to her advantage to get the sound she desires for the song. On March 21, 2024, Charli XCX released “The von dutch remix with addison rae and a.g. Cook” which had widely major success. To start, clips of Addison Rae, formally a TikTok star, screaming into a microphone were circulating. If anything tells you something about a song, “screaming into a microphone” perfectly describes the “hyper-pop” aesthetic Charli was going for. Finally, on May 10, 2024, Charli released her final single “360.” Without growth from tiktok, “360” peaked at #41 on the Billboard Hot 100.
On June 7, 2024, Charli XCX released her studio album BRAT with wide success. Gabi Swartz, a huge Charli XCX fan, stated “it matches her identity and how she relates to her music.” On June 10, Charli released her deluxe version of BRAT titled “brat and it’s the same but there’s three more songs so it’s not.” This album included three bonus tracks, all produced by A.G. Cook. The format of the album cover is not really like anything done before. The lime green color with a grainy and distorted font adds to the uniqueness of the record. For promotion, Charli changed all of her old album covers to match with the theme of BRAT. Personally, her marketing for this record was genius as she created her own template that others could use to make jokes about to further promote the album. My personal favorite tracks are “Club classics”, “B2b”, “365”, and, off of her deluxe album, “Spring Breakers.” Another honorable mention released is “So I” which served as a heartfelt and emotional track as she mourns the death of pop-star SOPHIE. I saw her perform this live at the Billboard Women in Music award show back in March, when BRAT was just forming. On June 21st, Charli announced that she is collaborating with Lorde on the new remix of “Girl, so confusing.” When Charli released this track off of BRAT, fans speculated that the song was about the singer, Lorde. Charli wrote about her struggles about if the two are friends anymore in the lyrics of the song. When the two singers collaborated, it was momentous as they resolved their internet feud over a song. A famous line from the song is “Lets work it out on the remix” as it shows each singer’s humor built into the lyrics. One significant way #bratsummer blew up, with Charli’s collaboration with Billie Eilish with the song “Guess.” The song was produced by upcoming star “The Dare” who is now getting his solo career started. The track contained Charlis and Billies verses followed with a monumental beat drop with the two artists singing together in the end. Guess peaked at #12 on the Billboard hot 100.
On July 22, Charli XCX tweeted “Kamala IS brat.” This event shaped half of Kamala’s campaign as fans were making “Von Dutch” edits of Kamala Harris. This post received over nine million views in less than four hours. Charli XCX explains BRAT as “You’re just like that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some dumb things sometimes.” One of the most popular songs off of the album, that inspired a dance, was the song “Apple.” Surprisingly “Apple” almost did not make the final tracklist in the end.
