On February 22nd, 2024, Boiler Room hosted their biggest-ever event. Though the Brooklyn warehouse where it was hosted had a capacity of only 400, over 25 thousand people RSVPed, blowing Boiler Room’s previous RSVP record out of the water. Unusually for Boiler Room, PARTYGIRL was not a set from either a well-established DJ or an up-and-comer with the whole of the music world’s eyes on them. Instead, though it featured appearances from friends and collaborators, the headliner was a pop star: Charli xcx.

One week later, in a high school gym in Minnesota, just before 11 am, I took a bathroom break. But you see, reader, I was not really using the bathroom. Instead, I snuck away to the cafeteria and pulled out my phone, just in time to catch the premier of Charli xcx’s new music video for Von Dutch, the lead single from her newly announced album, Brat.

In that moment, something shifted. Massive things were coming, but the Angels didn’t know exactly what at the time. Von Dutch may have been an instant fan favorite, but the prolonged rollout for the single left many frustrated and impatient. Still, the singles kept coming, including the accidental release of Talk Talk a few weeks before the album came out due to an error on Apple Music in New Zealand. 3 months after the release of its lead single, on June 7th, Brat was released to the world. Instantly, the album was a smash. Charli had gained a much broader following in the wake of her previous album, Crash, and her inclusion on the soundtrack of Barbie, and now she had the numbers to show for it. The record debuted at number 2 on the UK albums chart and number 3 on the Billboard 200, her highest-ever debut.

The Brat era was nothing short of a masterclass in viral marketing. Brooklyn’s famous “Brat wall” announced album details through live footage of the wall being painted getting broadcast onto Instagram Live. Bratgenerator.com allowed fans to make their own memes in the Brat font. The cover itself was a major topic of discourse, prompting discussions of what a good album cover is, with Brat at the center of the conversation in all its neon green glory. Charli was on top of the chronically online world. Yet, somehow, Brat mania had yet to reach its peak.

On July 21st of this year, facing mounting pressure from members of his own party, US President Joe Biden announced that he would no longer be seeking reelection in 2024, passing the torch to his Vice President, Kamala Harris. At the time, the Harris campaign felt like an unstoppable force. That day, Charli tweeted with barely a second thought: “kamala IS brat.”

Suddenly, everyone and their mother was scrambling to figure out what she could possibly have meant. The concept of “Brat summer” predated the post-Kamala virality, but now it was mainstream. CNN’s Jake Tapper had to explain what it means to be Brat to well-off white liberals in their 50s. John Oliver quipped about it on Last Week Tonight. Even Fox News had to figure out what to tell their geriatric audience. Charli later stated that she didn’t mean much behind the tweet, and that she doesn’t try to be viewed as a political artist. However, despite their throwaway nature, those now-immortal three words catapulted her into the stratosphere.

(Oh wait. This was supposed to be an album review. Suppose I ought to review the album. The cultural impact is so interesting though! Maybe in another article.)

One of Brat’s least streamed tracks, I Might Say Something Stupid, serves as a sort of thesis statement for the album. For many years, Charli occupied an odd section of the pop music landscape. Adored by critics with a strong cult following, but without the commercial success to show for it; a level of fame that Stan Twitter would refer to as the Khia Asylum. Like the album itself, it explores her relationship with her own celebrity and what it feels like to be a patient of the Khia Asylum; succinctly put, “famous, but not quite.” Unlike much of the album, however, Charli’s mask is completely off Everyone in the industry loves her, so why doesn’t it feel like it? The song is melancholic, featuring little more than a downtempo hi-hat and a few droning synths, a far cry from the soaring highs of songs like Von Dutch, Club Classics, and Everything Is Romantic. Not to mention, it ends abruptly, as if the song itself is anxious about overstaying its own welcome, thinking it’d be better to not draw things out or burden the listener with her feelings.

The album also tackles the complex intersection of celebrity and womanhood on songs like Girl, So Confusing and Sympathy Is a Knife. Upon release, the internet was ablaze with theories as to who the songs could be about, with the consensus eventually settling at the former being about Lorde (“People say we’re alike, they say we’ve got the same hair”) and the latter about Taylor Swift (“Don’t wanna see her backstage at my boyfriend’s show” was interpreted to be a reference to Swift’s whirlwind romance with the 1975 frontman Matty Healy; Charli is engaged to the band’s drummer, George Daniel). Though Sympathy’s hesitant and non-confrontational approach means we may likely never know its true subject, we soon found out from Lorde herself that she was the inspiration for Girl, So Confusing. In response to Charli’s vulnerable expression of her anxieties, Lorde revealed her own similar anxieties and her struggles with disordered eating, transforming something of a therapy session for Charli into something beautiful. In an industry that constantly pits women against one another, because of Brat and Girl, So Confusing, Charli and Lorde only became closer friends.

Even Brat’s most confident party girl anthems tap into the running theme of insecurity, with 360, Von Dutch, and 365 chronicling a slow descent into madness. Charli is sure of herself on 360, but the further she gets into the album, the less sure she seems. She may claim that “I don’t fucking care what you think,” but she seems to be going to great lengths to make sure you know she thinks that. Von Dutch is exceedingly brazen and confident, to the point of being performative. The song’s music video further solidifies its performatively combative nature, with Charli actively fighting the cameraperson, fighting to make sure that you know she’s the It Girl she claims to be in 360, all while her fashionable façade slowly deteriorates throughout the course of the video. By the end of the album, in 365, Charli completely succumbs to the chaos. She can’t fight the insecurity on her own anymore.

Cocaine is an increasingly present motif in Charli’s music, and Brat is where it hit its peak. 365 on the surface is essentially an anthem for the coke girlies. When taken at face value, it’s a campy song about doing coke at a party. However, within the context of the record, it represents Charli’s inability to cope with the mounting worries, anxieties, and insecurities she feels from every facet of her life. She may flippantly suggest “do[ing] a little key” or “hav[ing] a little line,” but deep down it’s a necessity. The song’s instrumental is the most prominent example of Charli’s unraveling, as the song takes the listener on the sonic equivalent of a bad trip, beginning at a place of familiarity and whimsy, but quickly devolving into little more than the thumping bass of the club, the pounding heartbeat of nightlife, ending in a horrifying otherworldly climax as Charli’s world, her art, crumbles around her.

Brat is a statement piece on what it means to be a B-list pop star, with all the highest highs and lowest lows that come with it, that almost accidentally catapulted Charli to the center of the conversation and the top of the charts. It explores girlhood, relationships both platonic and romantic, love, loss, and insecurity most of all. Charli’s days as a B-lister may be far behind her, but the age of Charli xcx: Pop Superstar are only beginning.