Album rollouts have become a relic of the past and the advent of digital streaming services is to blame. Think about the last time you listened to an album in its entirety. Or the last time an album release dented the cultural zeitgeist? Outside of a select few musical mammoths, the pop industry is severely lacking when compared to its noughties glory days. 

Platforms like Spotify or Apple Music which allow users to skip and shuffle tracks, create copious amounts of personal playlists and even hide songs that might not suit their tastes has drastically altered the manner in which modern music consumers engage with new releases. As someone who tends to listen to my favourite songs until their mere melody becomes unbearable, I just know the ‘skip’ button hates to see me coming. 

The popularity of these features has led many artists to stop curating intentional, immersive album listening and roll out experiences. With so many modern music listeners opting to listen to AI generated playlists, musicians are cursed with the knowledge that – if they are lucky – their best performing track may end up on a user’s Daily Mix 1. 

While the hallmarks of traditional album promotion such as time-consuming press tours remain the norm, many artists now rely on the power of the algorithm to advertise.

We are in an age when social media platforms are largely responsible for selecting the next one hit wonder. It seems many lack the attention span needed in order to wait for an artist to release a full body of interconnected work, especially when the release of sonically different singles every couple of months holds more immediate gratification. Short, snappy and concise TikTok-able snippets from songs have become the bread and butter of the music industry. 

Consequently, it is unsurprising to me that many musicians feel as though putting effort and momentum behind a months-long album rollout is not worthwhile. Can we blame them considering how difficult it is to retain relevance in today’s overly saturated pop culture market? Don’t get me wrong, this is not to say the quality of albums released in recent years is poor, rather that the emphasis placed on marketing these albums as a complete, coherent unit is a dying art. That is, until Brat. 

The discourse around Charli XCX’s sixth studio album began all the way back on February 28th of this year. I remember watching Twitter discussions regarding the album’s artwork, or lack thereof, unfold as I embarked upon my Erasmus. 

Conversation quickly arose over Charli’s noticeable absence from the album cover. Before the album’s signature Pantone 3570-C green and blurry lowercase narrow arial font became embedded into the public’s subconscious, it was at the centre of online controversy. It seems there is a certain expectation held by the general public that female artists themselves must feature as the central spectacle of their album cover. Notably, this is a criticism not waged against male musicians. A gendered double standard in the music industry, what a shock. 

The desire to control and claim ownership over female artists is by no means a new phenomena and online spaces have only immensely facilitated the intensification of already existing parasocial relationships fans share with their favourite artists. Take, most recently, the backlash waged against Chappell Roan when she asked her fans to respect her personal boundaries. “I think the constant demand for access to women’s bodies and faces in our album artwork is misogynistic and boring,” Charli said in a tweet following the criticism. “Why should anyone have that level of ownership over female artists?” she reiterated, honing down on her stance when asked by Vogue Singapore about her decision to omit herself from the cover. 

While Charli’s absence was supposedly based on the principle of female agency, it also was also a carefully calculated decision. “I wanted to go with an offensive, off-trend shade of green to trigger the idea of something being wrong,” she revealed in one interview. 

Imogene Strauss, Charli’s creative director, revealed to Billboard how “hundreds of versions of the cover” were carefully considered by Charli’s team. “We knew it was going to be green, but the conversations around the shade of green were weeks long,” Strauss said. “There’re so many versions that existed before the final. We analysed every single element: where has this colour been used before, what are its associations, who reacts to it and how.”

The launch of the Brat generator allowed the already recognisable design to be easily duplicated by fans and non fans alike. The concept spread like wildfire with people from all sects of the internet engaging with the simulator to display their own typography against the distinct obnoxious Pantone 3570-C, which was quickly becoming known as ‘brat green’. The emergence of the neon Brat wall – which regularly changed to reflect Charli’s upcoming collaborators – on May 2nd enhanced the buzz surrounding the roll out. Located at 17 Nassau Avenue in Brooklyn, New York, the lime green wall would signify the intensification of the album roll out.

The continued and consistent promotion of Brat was refreshing, going far beyond the usual release of singles and music videos before an album drop. Charli’s PARTYGIRL event on February 22 in Brooklyn received the most RSVP’s in the history of Boiler Room and is an event I will forever have severe FOMO for. This early promotional event saw fans become sonically excited for the album with sets throughout the night from A. G. Cook, George Daniel and Charli herself showcasing snippets of what to expect from the album. July would see Charli take PARTYGIRL to Amnesia in Ibiza for yet another star studded Boiler Room set.

Both of these events are significant as they brought electronic music, a genre usually not revered as overtly commercial by the press, to the public sphere. Now, ‘Brat summer’ is its own recognised sub genre on Spotify, illustrating its power culturally, musically and economically. 

The success of Brat summer can also in large part be attributed to Charli’s ability to engage fans from a grassroots level. @Brat_360 on Instagram, Charli’s finsta if you will, launched 10 months before the album’s release. Although counterintuitive, the allure of the account came from its exclusivity. The constant access we have to celebrities via social media made this instance of being kept out an anomaly. Gaining access to @Brat_360 began taking up an extensive part of online discourse which also acted as another form of pro bono marketing.  I myself remember the day I became part of the cohort following the page, truly an electric moment if I do say so myself.

Regardless of how curated @Brat_360 was in actuality, it allowed its followers the pretence of a more meaningful and personal connection with their favourite IT girl, thus heightening their sense of loyalty and adoration towards her. Brat summer, for all its fun, was a carefully curated cultural phenomenon with meticulous detail awarded to each aspect of the album rollout. 

Fan interest further propelled and consolidated Brat into the cultural zeitgeist – just look at the popularity of the fan-made dance to her track ‘Apple’, which has taken TikTok by storm. 

But while becoming part of a meme is a magnificent marketing strategy, it can also facilitate a trend’s downfall. What started as an immersive club album based around being brazen and carefree was soon appropriated by corporations and politicians eager to cash in on the trend. I’m sure at this stage we have all been privy to an edit of presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris set to a song from Brat. 

Thus, there was, is, a feeling among many that the sun has set on Brat summer. This notion was further reinforced following Nato’s attempts to jump on the trend, uploading a Brat-themed post to Instagram reading ‘peace.’ Much like the start of the Brat era, people took to Twitter to air their opinions on this with one user stating “the club song themed album to political pipeline is crazy. how did we even get here??”

As with many internet phenomena, the trend became too prominent, too oversaturated. Ironically, people grew weary of the offensive neon green as it became seen as off trend. This feeling was only amplified by capitalist culture cashing in on the era. While this may provide Charli’s Brat with sustained marketing, it also removes her creative control over the way her art is perceived by the public.

Is that not, however, what all artists want? For their work to become so influential it takes on a life of its own, irreversibly solidifying itself within the collective consciousness? Despite claims about the trend ending after its online over-saturation, the album’s critical, commercial and cultural impact will not be forgotten.

(note: this piece was penned ahead of the announcement of Brat’s remix album releasing on October 11th – roll on Brat autumn…?)