The Charli xcx Effect

The BRAT influence on female pop stars has reached its peak. Let's explore.

The “BRAT” Cultural Shift

Setting a trend is no easy task, but once it’s done, the effects can be wide ranging.

The grip that Charli xcx’s BRAT had on pop culture when it was released in 2024 cannot be understated. From June to October, there was an all-out push (both organic and forced) to put the record and its ethos at the forefront of everyone’s minds. The videos from the SWEAT Tour, the “Apple” dance, the impromptu listening events, the remix album, the “BRAT summer” DJ events — all of was in service of making fans obsessed with Charli and the prolonged rollout cycle for her album. People ran at full speed from far and wide to just get a glimpse of her in front of that banner in some way, shape of form. This nihilistic, “caution to the wind” approach to her statements (i.e. kamala IS brat, “I know you’re obsessed with me”), her look, the writing and the production was hard to ignore, something kind of stupid, but ultimately, it was deeply effective.

BRAT really terraformed the female pop landscape in a way that’s almost unbelievable to witness. She had already pioneered alongside Sophie and A.G. Cook in the genre of hyperpop, carving out a brand new lane for artists like Dorian Electra, Pabllo Vitar and Kim Petras, but that wasn’t “mainstream.” BRAT charted, won three Grammys and was clipped to death on TikTok, meaning that the record industry had to finally take notice of the blueprint she had established.

Only time will truly tell what the next 5+ years of pop music will bring and what new artist will build a career off of that sound. The influence of Yeezus came much later, in the form of Billie Eilish’s “See Me In A Crown” and Travis Scott’s UTOPIA. With that being said, the BRAT effect has musically been pretty hit-or-miss thus far. Charli claims her next album will be “anti-BRAT”, but so many other artists are just getting around to exploring her previous ideas.

The Sound and The Songwriting

What exactly is the “brat” sound that is so influential to these artists? It takes components of house, techno and electro, cranks up the bass and kicks, and combines them with sweet pop synths and autotune singing. Tracks like “360”, “Club classics”, “Von dutch” and “365” are the four tracks that would be easiest to point to in order to summarize the sound palette. Lyrically, we oftentimes get a detached, party-friendly drive: “When I go to the club I wanna hear those club classics, club classics, club club classic”, “365 party girl (bumping that), 365 party girl (bumping that)”, you get it. Other times, it gets a little more detailed and personal, as on songs like “I think about it all the time” or “I might say something stupid.” This mix of dance floor debauchery and sad girl confessions is what gave the album range and made it such a runaway hit with fans and the general pop audience.

So, when I say that other artists are using “the BRAT effect” less effectively, I mean that they (or their team) are distilling what is, to me, a pretty detail oriented and specific record to Charli’s experience, and turning it into a repeatable formula that further continues to dilute how special the album was.

Take Kesha’s “BOY CRAZY”, maybe the worst example of BRAT runoff:

It has all the hallmarks of a BRAT song, especially taking cues from the “life in a montage” structure of “Everything is romantic”. It has the heavy kicks, buzzing synths, the dejected vocal delivery with elicit and sweaty phrases like: “Berlin to Bombay, New York to LA / Tokyo to Tahoe, boys are my cocaine / Bikers and the dumb bros, daddies and the gym hoes.” Now for Kesha, subject matter or even production like this is not entirely out of character. It’s just that the uneven mix of awkwardness and seriousness that she decides to convey these with is absolutely pitiful. Lest we forget, this is an artist with billions of streams, huge songs dealing in this subject matter, and someone who quite honestly laid down this nihilistic party lifestyle down on wax far before Charli did, on songs like “Your Love Is My Drug” and “TiK ToK.” She has had big hit songs of this ilk, so it’s confusing that this flopped this hard.

Due to the previous expertise in this genre, her and her team likely felt comfortable taking ideas from Charli, and it could’ve ended well. They’re friendly, after all. But, physical and cultural connection to another person is only context that can make good art great, not something that can cover up very apparent blemishes, like the lyrics, beat, and vocal performance on “BOY CRAZY.” Which to me, just reads as really annoying and obnoxious, unfortunately. I would say roughly the same for the Kesha verse on Charli’s “Spring Breakers”, one of the weakest on the BRAT remix record.

Kesha is far from the only one trying to hop on the bandwagon, however. You can hear DNA of BRAT in Blackpink’s return single, “JUMP.” The simple title, the revving synths, the hard kicks — it’s as if The Dare is a co-producer. I could be totally off-base—I’m no K-pop expert—but this foray into EDM seems like no mistake, the switch from trap-inspired instrumentals was very likely inspired by Charli. Even PinkPantheress’s “Stateside”, which actually uses The Dare for production, fits into her world and sticks out as less of a sore thumb than this song does. Albeit, this song is fun and catchy, far more listenable and more fun to dance to than “BOY CRAZY.”

“Fast”, the newest single from Demi Lovato is another great example. The title itself seems like something that ChatGPT would come up with if you asked it for the title of a fake Charli single. She’s made lots of music about driving and living fast, “VROOM VROOM”, “Speed Drive”, “Rewind”, “pink diamond”—the entire post-SOPHIE catalog feeds into a song like “Fast.” Just like with “JUMP” and “Von dutch”, we get a beat built on those steady kicks, I could just imagine Charli singing “it’s ok to just admit that you’re jealous of me” over this—in fact, it’s the exact same key, B minor. Lyrically, the similarities continue “I wanna go fast / I wanna go hard / I wanna go anywhere you are.” It’s concise, lustful, and even has a vocal breakdown, “I wanna go fast, go fast, go fa fa fafafafa” (BEAT DROP.) It never does too far or veers into any experimental territory like a Charli track usually would, but that’s because Demi and her team would never fully take that risk. It has to share the loud and ear-catching aspects of BRAT-influenced, but ultimately, it must mold to the conventions of bro-EDM. Side note, imagine The Chainsmokers made an album called BRO.

Two more examples that actual work fairly well—mostly because they have direct blessings from Charli herself—are Addison Rae’s “New York” and Selena Gomez’s “Bluest Flame.” Charli has been a massive advocate for Addison Rae as the next big pop star for a while now. She featured on her track “2 die 4”, Addison did an A.G. Cook remix of “Von dutch”, and the two were on Cook’s “Lucifer.” The references to the Bowery Hotel, where Charli typically stays, as well as the “I love New York love New York love New York” chorus on “New York” are Charli down to a T, and Rae would admit that readily.

Meanwhile, Selena’s “Bluest Flame” is literally just a Charli xcx song—“I just wanna go all night, I just wanna go all night”—the heavy autotune, the hyperpop keys, the techno hi-hats, it’s all there. Not to mention, its co-written by Charli herself and produced by Benny Blanco, who’s worked with Charli in the past on her sophomore album, SUCKER. Benny is kind of the middle ground between the Top 10 radio hits of Kesha and the experimental pop of people like FKA twigs (he’s worked with pretty much everyone both sides of that spectrum), so he’s kind of the perfect guy for this job. I don’t particularly like either of these songs, but they’re good instances of this sound having legs in the wider pop world.

Two more examples that may not apply but are worth mentioning, are that Lorde and FKA twigs suddenly decided to make electronic music again. Both of them are super original and put their own spin on it, but particularly in Lorde’s case, it doesn’t seem like a coincidence after working with Charli on the “Girl so confusing” remix. To me, Virgin is her verse from that song but extended to 35 minutes. It’s electronically backed, confessional, a little clumsy at moments, but ultimately, really compelling and well done.

So, in a nutshell, the hard electronics, simple sexual partying lyrics and repetitive choruses are a major part of most modern pop music. Not that pop wasn’t doing all of that anyway, but that’s kind of the point. BRAT was just left-field enough that it felt refreshing while still hitting many of the hallmarks of the pregame playlists and DJ set staples.

Sometimes having a direct connection to Charli or “party pop” allows artists to riff on that sound a bit more than others, but that doesn’t always yield the best results, commercially or just, as good music which is mostly what I’m here for.

The Visuals

“I went my own way and I made it / I'm your favorite reference, baby” - Charli xcx on “360”

Visually, it’s even easier to see the inspiration happening. Maybe I’m being stupid here, but when did Kesha, Selena and Katy Perry start covering their eyes with jet black sunglasses indoors? Quintessential to the BRAT lifestyle are party photographers and paparazzi snapping flash photos at the club or hotel, so it’s become a necessity for all of them, it’s more of a practical measure than anything. But in all seriousness, Demi Lovato and and Katy Perry are trying very hard to look like Charli, “it’s so obvious!”

In Demi Lovato’s case, her team decided to pick up Imogene Strauss, Charli xcx’s longtime creative director for her newest video and single cover for “Fast”. Everything from the muted colors, the glow of the neon lights, down to Demi utilizing Charli’s famous jet black hair with a middle part feels like something straight out of a video for either Crash (which Imogene directed two visuals for) or BRAT. Coupled with the aforementioned hard electronic beat, it’s almost uncanny to look at it for too long.

As far as videos and photoshoots go, I wouldn’t say that someone like Kesha borrowed all that much from Charli. However, the dead simple album title name for her newest record, called . or “period”, to me is a pretty open and shut case of copying. Even further than that, she put a giant circle or “.” over all of her old album covers, signaling that the major labels can’t use her imagery anymore to sell her music. Famously, Charli did this after the release of BRAT, changing all her old covers to a simplified title with the BRAT font.

(Charli and Kesha have similar motives, and they could’ve been good companion albums because they are similar in thesis, but it just simply doesn’t work out that way on . On the album . THE ALBUM CALLED “.” or “Period.” Just “period”, it’s not “period period.” Just “period”, it’s not period period period”, ok?)

When I saw this, I knew immediately what Kesha was striving for, and I was worried.

BRAT. PERIOD. FAST. JUMP. Doesn’t it all feel like this exact image?

Again, as I said before, Kesha is kind of a mother of this “balls to the wall” party pop style, but when I see her going on the “Tits Out Tour”, I cannot help but think that this wouldn’t exist without BRAT coming first. It’s all just too sudden, especially after the relative calm and conformity of her last two LPS, Eat The Acid and High Road.

It’s Not Just Female Pop Stars Who BRAT Is Influencing…

Tame Impala’s latest full-on switch from psych rock to simplified progressive house on “End of Summer” is definitely inspired by BRAT’s marketing especially in a few ways.

He’s using the same creative agency (Special Offer, Inc.) for the single packaging that won a Grammy for Charli’s BRAT assets. He even utilizes Imogene for creative direction for the single art and music video. So even outside of Charli and the sound she pioneered with her producers, her creative team is also pushing the minimalistic vibes forward by working with other artists.

To stretch or extend this even further, it’s possible that without the success of BRAT, her now husband’s DHii (Dirty Hit 2) electronic label wouldn’t have been promoted as effectively, either. That label has a lot of great DJs and producers like Oscar Farrell, Kelly Lee Owens, and George Daniel, who capture both the driving, simplistic production of the BRAT cuts, as well as the barebones single cover design. In this case, since George was instrumental to the creation of BRAT, the acts have been making that type of music for a while, and The 1975 (who George is a part of) has also used this sharp cover art design as well, I think him and his label have more agency and right to do this. Charli and his label are more contemporary to each other than Charli is to someone like Kesha, Blackpink, or Demi Lovato, to be honest.

But, it’s hard to deny that more stripped back design philosophy in sound and look is on the rise and it’s in no small part to Charli and her team’s efforts. Overblown is out, effortless is in, plain and simple (no pun intended.)

Conclusion

Will pop move in a more skeletal and hard hitting direction going forward? Will be expensive photo shoots be out? Will continuing to appeal to niches be in, or will all niches balloon to the size of the pop they try to go against? I’m not entirely sure, but what I do know is that the profound influence that Charli xcx has had on the pop and peripheral music landscape has been really cool to see as a long time fan. It’s not typical for an album as amazing as BRAT to go that mainstream and be shuffled in randomly while moms listen to music on their Alexa. It’s fun to see new ideas be applied to all different facets of the marketing and the sound of the music itself, and I’m excited to see what BRAT does for pop next.

Now, what we’ve gotten so far is a little too derivative, a little too much of a diluted vision of what the lightning-in-a-bottle of BRAT really was, but I think generally speaking, a more rough around the edges, industrial kind of feel is what is missing. It’s better than listening to Bebe Rexha interpolate another annoying ‘90s song, or Gracie Abrams copying Taylor Swift some more. So, let’s just see what the next five years has in store for us, what do we have to lose?