Charli XCX has revealed in a new interview that she found it difficult to know where she fitted into the music industry until her 2024 album ‘Brat’.
The singer, real name Charlotte Aitchison, explained that her focus was always to make the music she wanted and have people listen to it, and that ‘Brat’ came about because she wanted to make the record in her own way.
Charli, who celebrated the one-year anniversary of remix album ‘Brat And It’s Completely Different But Also Still Brat’ on Saturday (October 11) told Vanity Fair, “I don’t even think my driving factor has been, ‘I wanna be the biggest pop star ever in the world,’ or anything like that. I always just wanted to make music on my own terms and have as many people listen to it as possible, which sounds really simple.
“But I think I’ve really struggled over the years, because I’ve never felt like I fit in,” she continued. “Am I supposed to be this underground left artist, or am I supposed to try and be this commercial package? And I think before ‘Brat’, I just gave up on fighting with myself on that. I really said, ‘Okay, I am going to make this record in this specific way, and I’m actually fine with the consequences of that; if it means no one hears it, if it means I get dropped by my label.’”
Elsewhere in the interview, Charli said that she reads as much coverage about her as possible, sharing: “I’m always interested in, like, what does the casual viewer think? And they probably think I’m a girl who parties and does drugs and is a little bit bitchy.”
‘Brat’ hit Number One in the UK, Australia, Croatia, Ireland and New Zealand, reached Number Three in the US, and spawned the Brat Summer phenomenon, becoming Charli’s most successful album.
It followed her 2022 album ‘Crash’, which saw her eschew the hyperpop sound she adopted in the 2010s for dance-pop and synth-pop, Charli describing it at the time as her “major label sell-out” record.
Earlier this month, Charli – who has declared the ‘Brat’ era over a number of times – teased studio footage days after one of her collaborators revealed that she’s been working on a “really different and fresh” new album.
— Charli (@charli_xcx) October 5, 2025
In May, she hinted that she was expecting her next album to go in a completely different direction, saying: “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.”
And in February, her producers A.G. Cook, Finn Keane and George Daniel – also her husband – said that the follow-up is shaping up to be “anti-Brat”, Keane saying: “Some of the conversations we’re having and music we’ve been playing around with the last couple of months have been completely the opposite.”
NME gave ‘Brat’ a four-star review at the time of its release, saying: “Driven by her desire to fully embrace club music, the British artist’s sixth record fuses well-earned confidence and vulnerability in thrilling fashion.”
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