Charli XCX was focused on the marketing behind her hit record ‘Brat’ before its music.
Charli XCX was focused on the marketing behind her hit record ‘Brat’ before its music
The singe, 32, went viral over the summer when she used the title of the album to heap praise on US presidential candidate Kamala Harris before she was beaten to the White House by Donald Trump – saying the term meant someone who loves to have a good time and is “blunt” and vulnerable.
She has now told Variety in a new cover story for the magazine about the sales strategy behind ‘Brat’: “Usually when I’ve made a record, there is this transitional phase (after it’s recorded), where I’m thinking about how to present the music.
“But with this one, I actually did that first – I was thinking about marketing before I was making the music.
“I had the title first, which was such a brief and a super-useful writing tool.
“It put boundaries on the songwriting, because immediately if I was writing a song with (her long-time collaborators) AG Cook or Cirkut, it would just immediately be like, ‘That’s not brat,’ and we would move on and do something that was brat.”
She clarified about the meaning of ‘brat’: “The whole idea of being a brat is interesting to me, because why are people brats?
“Why do people act out and be difficult and misbehave? I think it’s because sometimes you’re overcompensating for insecurity or feeling uncomfortable, and I think that’s where the two fit together.”
Charli gave her interview as part of Variety’s ‘Hitmakers’ issue, and spoke with the magazine’s executive editor Jem Aswad.
She also used the chat to discuss working on the ‘Brat’ remix album with Lorde and Ariana Grande and her plans for a future acting career.