Brat’s back, baby.
At least, it’s hard not to think that right now. We’re standing in a field at LIDO Festival in East London and a brash, bold, and occasionally obnoxious pop phenomenon known as Charli xcx is holding court to a packed-out crowd.
She’s spreading the mantra of Brat to anyone within earshot, assisted occasionally by a slew of frenetic neon green visuals and the kind of writhing anti-choreography that tends to land somewhere between abstract modernist theatre and a slightly tipsy twenty-something on a Revolution dance floor. It’s maximalist, and excessive, and ridiculously entertaining.
But what it doesn’t do, dear reader, is answer one small question: what exactly is Brat?
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Is Brat just ridiculously good pop music?
Well, maybe. After all, there’s a lot of that on display here. From the kick-off of set opener 365 to the defiant closing roars of the (always excellent) I Love It, you can’t move for a supermassive chorus chorus around here. Sympathy is a knife and Girl, so confusing are obvious highlights, but it’s the aforementioned I Love It that’s the true musical highlight of the night. A song that was tailor-made for soundtracking hedonistic nights and questionable decisions – in other words, ‘Brat’ – it’s nevertheless strange to consider that a song that topped the charts in the 2010s served as the sonic and tonal blueprint for an album that wouldn’t be made for another ten years.
But ultimately, dear reader: who gives a shit? It’s a banger, and the perfect set closer for tonight’s festivities.
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Is Brat a stadium-sized stage show with more pop culture references than you could shake a TikTok trend at?
Well, yes. From viral superstar Amelia Dimoldenberg popping up unannounced to do the notorious Apple dance, to a legion of lyrical nods to It Girls, cultural moments, and an assortment of other zeitgeist-encapsulating individuals, it’s hard to escape the feeling that Brat’s very much about the moment. And as moments go, there are a few tonight that rival anything this reviewer’s seen in all their (redacted) years of ‘music journalism’.
Whether it’s the sight of a field full of people raising their hands (and phones) in unison as the opening beats of Sympathy is a knife kick in, or the roar that greeted A. G. Cook and Bladee as they strolled onto the stage to join Charli for Rewind, it’s hard to shake the feeling that there were more than a handful of moments tonight that will live longer in the minds of those in attendance
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So, put simply, is Brat… Well, just a good time?
Honestly? It’s precisely that. As writers, it’s our job to over-think these things, and our instinct to insert nuance into things that were, perhaps, designed to be taken at face value. And if anything was designed to be consumed, en masse, with no trepidations or lingering senses of self-consciousness, it’s Charli xcx’s Brat show.
And there, dear reader, lies its brilliance. This world can be a messed-up place, and we all need a little bit of escapism from time to time; and frankly, we’ll be damned if each and every member of the crowd at LIDO Festival on this storied night didn’t manage to forget their troubles for ninety minutes and revel in the sheer, exhilarating, and as-yet-undefined joy of…
Well, Brat.
