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Brash, insouciant, unfiltered: how Charli XCX made pop fun again

In a year of major releases from stars, the British singer has managed to come out on top with Brat: a catchy, internet-consuming album that captures a particular moment

But to a community of largely women, LGBTQ+ people and music critics, she is the biggest pop star in the world, the one everyone’s obsessed with – a persona Charli has leaned into with uncompromising, deadpan bravado: “It’s OK to just admit that you’re jealous of me,” she taunts on Von Dutch, the lead single off an album whose meme-generating cover is literally green with envy. Brat is one of the most critically acclaimed albums of the year, now one of the top 20 all time on the site Metacritic (score: 95); her sold-out show/rave in Brooklyn this week drew such online fixations as Julia Fox, Lorde, Matty Healy and his new model fiancee Gabbriette, with tickets reselling for $10,000; many have pointed out that fellow pop artists Camila Cabello and Katy Perry are jacking her sound and lo-fi style, evidence of what Vox’s Rebecca Jennings called the “broader XCXification of culture”. She has a long-standing and loyal cult following for frenetic, brilliantly discordant releases outside of her major label contract – Pop 2, crowdsourced quarantine project How I’m Feeling Now – that have little sonic relation to her biggest chart hits (Boom Clap, the hook on Iggy Azalea’s Fancy.)

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