“It’s okay to simply admit that you simply’re jealous of me,” Charli XCX sings on “Von dutch,” the lead single from her just-released album BRAT, a critically adored assortment of pulsing hyperpop bangers. She’s referring to a lady who’s speaking shit about her however is, undeniably, obsessed. It is a operating theme all through BRAT: “Woman, so complicated” tells the story of a peer-slash-rival who Charli worries is secretly cheering on her downfall, whereas “360” and its video locations Charli within the pantheon of web it-girls who’re cooler and extra attention-grabbing than anybody else. “Whenever you’re within the mirror, you’re simply me,” she sings, self-consciously channeling the titular “brat.”
In an period of nonstop investigation into whom pop stars are referring to of their lyrics, it virtually doesn’t matter who Charli’s speaking about. She might be speaking about anybody. As a result of lately, everybody desires to be Charli XCX, the longtime important darling of “various” feminine artists.
When former Fifth Concord member Camila Cabello teased her new single, “I LUV IT” (additionally the identify of one among Charli’s most well-known songs, albeit spelled in another way) by leaning outdoors a automobile window in March, followers accused her of copping Charli XCX’s sound and fashion (Charli even posted a video of herself lip synching to her 2017 track “I Bought It” instantly afterward, then tweeted “comee onnn mess is enjoyable! nothing issues!”). Cabello’s album title, C, XOXO, additionally recollects Charli XCX’s stage identify, and the font on a few of her vinyl albums was described as “mainly the identical” because the one used on BRAT. Then in June, Katy Perry posted a carousel of photographs on Instagram, the place commenters mentioned they mistook her for Charli — the lengthy darkish hair, the lo-fi pictures, and the squat-and-pout all being basic Charli hallmarks.
As Charli has spent the previous few months constructing hype for BRAT, it’s change into a meme to notice what number of stars appear to be channeling her vibe: “she kinda appears to be like like she’s simply livin that life von dutch cult basic however she nonetheless pops,” somebody on X wrote of an image of Anne Hathaway carrying a denim corset and massive hair, referencing the lyrics to “Von dutch.” “She appears to be like like when she goes to the membership she desires to listen to these membership classics,” somebody else wrote of Girl Gaga with crimped hair and a leather-based jacket, referring to the observe “Membership classics.” Everybody from actress Melissa Barrera to pop star Dua Lipa, activist Erika Hilton, artist Kate Bush, Soundcloud rapper Ian, Geeta from Pokémon, and even a inexperienced sticky observe have been memed as eager to be Charli XCX. Whereas most of those situations are clearly tongue-in-cheek, they converse to a broader XCXification of tradition.
Having constructed her profession on MySpace and later East London raves as a young person within the 2000s, there’s by no means been a time when Charli XCX wasn’t cool, per se. Whereas her friends face fixed (and sometimes sexist) criticism for being supposed “trade vegetation,” nobody could make the identical accusations of Charli, who has been prolific not solely in her personal music, largely written and produced by herself, but additionally writing and producing for different pop artists. But tailing Charli for the final decade-plus has been countless discourse over whether or not she’d ever rise to the extent of fame of her contemporaries: Taylor Swift, Girl Gaga, Ariana Grande, and others who reigned on the charts within the 2010s. “For years, each Charli and her critics appeared distractingly obsessed along with her place — the darling of the underground who both would or couldn’t graduate to Foremost Pop Woman,” writes Meaghan Garvey in her Pitchfork overview of BRAT (ranking: 8.6). “Then one thing shifted, and it hardly appeared to matter. She had one thing they didn’t. She was cool.”
BRAT each flaunts and undercuts that coolness, for each hedonistic anthem like “365” (“Who the fuck are you? I’m a brat once I’m bumpin’ that/Now I wanna hear my observe, are you bumpin’ that?”), there are anxious confessions that the act is simply that, a theme that’s spanned her total profession. For a pop star who has thousands and thousands of envious onlookers, it’s hanging to listen to her sing so plainly about her struggles with jealousy, typically towards her former self, different occasions directed at her friends. On “Rewind,” she yearns to return to a time earlier than she didn’t overanalyze her face form or obsess over the Billboard charts; on “Sympathy is a knife” she feels insecure whereas being pressured to faux smile with a considerably extra well-known pop star who’s courting a bandmate of her fiancé, the 1975’s George Daniel (one guess as to who that’s). “I don’t really feel like nothing particular,” she laments on “I would say one thing silly,” “I’m well-known however not fairly/however I’m good for the background.”
Then there’s “Imply women,” a sort-of-but-not-really ironic shoutout to a crowd of dead-eyed mental it-girls that Charli each resents and admires (one other guess as to who these individuals are). “You hate the very fact she’s New York Metropolis’s darling/You say she’s problematic and the best way you say it, so fanatic/Assume she already is aware of that you simply’re obsessed.” In interviews, Charli has additionally spoken candidly about skilled envy, telling Rolling Stone that she was “tremendous jealous” when Lorde’s “Royals” debuted in 2013. “You piece all these things collectively in your mind, like: ‘She was into my music. She had huge hair; I had huge hair. She wore black lipstick; I as soon as wore black lipstick.’ You create these parallels and assume, ‘Nicely, that would have been me.’” she mentioned. Followers have speculated that “Woman, so complicated” is about Lorde, regardless of (or maybe due to) the truth that upon BRAT’s launch, Lorde posted a gushy Instagram story, writing, “it’s an honour to be moved, modified and gagged by her work.”
On being round extra well-known celebrities, Charli informed the journal that she and different artists typically really feel insecure however that “we don’t speak about it as a result of we’re all purported to be sturdy and assured.” “Being jealous is someway wrongly equated to not supporting girls or not being a woman’s lady, which isn’t true,” she mentioned. “You may, I feel, expertise envy and nonetheless be a superb one who champions different girls. Jealousy is simply not a really attractive feeling, or an attractive attribute actually, is it?”
Pop music, greater than virtually another side of tradition, tends to pit artists in opposition to each other. On any given week, one artist is deemed the way forward for the trade, the following week a star like Chappell Roan is born and shakes all of it up. Charli has lengthy been hailed as “the longer term” of pop, owing to her various e-girl aesthetic but additionally to her hyperpop-inflected sound: Because the mid-2010s, she’s labored with visionary producers like A.G. Cook dinner, previously of PC Music, and the late SOPHIE, who, amongst fellow artists 100 gecs, Slayyyter, and Caroline Polachek, have been labeled as “futuristic,” typically to the purpose of cliché (was hyperpop “the longer term” or was it merely the current?) “Its fundamental intention was to decouple pop’s head-rush aesthetics from any industrial expectations, thereby opening house for wilder enjoyable,” as the Atlantic described it.
Very like Beyoncé on Cowboy Carter, Charli XCX has mentioned she rejects any style labels, and BRAT resists being categorized as something however a Charli XCX album. However eschewing industrial targets to create more room for enjoyable is finally a descriptor of Charli’s total profession: Her greatest industrial hits up to now (“Increase Clap,” “I Love It,” “Fancy”) are ones that no self-respecting fan would come with in a listing of their prime 10 Charli songs. As an alternative, the Angels (Charli’s fanbase) are inclined to admire the weirdness and innovation of her 2017 mixtape Pop 2 or the delightfully scuzzy quarantine album how i’m feeling now, which grew to become cult favorites. Together with BRAT, these are Charli at her most Charliesque, and when celebrities are jacking her fashion and sound, that’s what they’re borrowing. “Taken collectively, it doesn’t actually sound like anything,” the New Yorker’s Kelefa Sanneh wrote in his overview of BRAT. “Little doubt that received’t be true for lengthy.”
Musicians referencing and borrowing from one another isn’t new, and it’s wholesome — the concept that artists are solely authentic is a false one, not least as a result of if that had been true, it might make for lots of actually boring music. Charli XCX didn’t invent hyperpop, she didn’t invent the attractive lobotomy stare (or “dissociative pout”), she didn’t invent the .5 selfie, she didn’t trigger the Nice Vibe Shift towards nihilism, decadence, and irony or the return of indie sleaze. However she’s an ideal conduit for all of these items, and he or she makes actually good, actually enjoyable music you possibly can dance to whereas taking part in them. She is a local of coolness however, not like so many cool folks, can articulate what it appears like. She will be able to write a track about being 31 and in love and questioning whether or not it’s time to consider having a child with out it sounding trite or normie; she will be able to write about being jealous of different women whereas nonetheless making you jealous of her.
In a tradition that calls for its girls be each assured and susceptible, “genuine” however poised, Charli’s ode to the sensation no person’s supposed to speak about has reasonably paradoxically made the whole pop sphere resentful. She’s your favorite reference, child.
