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British pop singer Charli XCX (real name Charlotte Emma Aitchison) said that she did not feel the pressure to follow up the success of Brat. In an interview with Culted, published on Tuesday, May 20, 2025, the songstress explained that she did not mind if her next album flopped.
When questioned if she felt compelled to recreate another "zeitgeist-defining album," the singer explained:
"I don’t really feel the pressure because I feel that you can never really do the same thing twice and my next record will probably be a flop which I’m down for to be honest."
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Aitchison dropped her hit album Brat last summer. The project, defined by its 2000s rave-inspired tracts, was met with acclaim by both critics and audiences alike. It featured a minimal album cover—a lime green background with brat written in a basic black font. Since then, it has become a cultural phenomenon, even spurring the brat-summer trend.
"I had no clue that people would kind of connect to it"—Charli XCX about making Brat for herself rather than thinking about its reception
During her interview with Culted, Charli XCX explained that when she was working on recording Brat, she was not thinking about how the now Grammy-winning album would be received. She explained that while she believed in the project and knew what she wanted from it, she was doing it for herself. The Apple singer continued:
"I was really doing it for myself and marketing it in the way I wanted to for myself but I had no clue that people would kind of connect to it in the way that they did."
Last July, the British singer told CNBC that Brat was a project she felt personally passionate about. Charli XCX explained that it was "confrontational and aggressive," and its lyrics reflected texts she would send to her friends. She asserted that she wanted the album to represent herself, not the "radio one-liners" prominent in pop music.
Earlier this year, the songstress told Cosmopolitan she was "not ready" to let go of Brat, as it was "so inherently (her)." Noting that it had become her "entire life," she continued:
"I started thinking about culture and the kind of ebbs and flows of the lifespan of things and how when you get a level of success, you can kind of become oversaturated and then people want you to disappear, which I understand."
She elaborated that she was "fascinated" by the "tension of staying too long."
Elsewhere in the interview, Charli XCX discussed her experience transitioning from an underdog to a mainstream pop artist. The Von Dutch artist explained she found it "interesting" that when a person was an "underdog" on the way to success, people were with them. But once they achieved their goals, some were happy, and others remained skeptical.
Charli XCX is currently on her Brat Tour in support of the album. It began in November 2024 with a show in Manchester, England, and will conclude in Helsinki, Finland, in August of this year. The songstress also had two back-to-back weekend concerts at Coachella this April.
