With a multi-Grammy-nominated album as a gateway to a culture-shaking phenomenon, Charli xcx, Variety’s Hitmaker of the Year, ruled 2024 with virality, vulnerability and hot beats.
In 2024, a hit song is more like something you can’t escape than something you can measure. There are countless charts and services and data dumps that measure streams and memes and airplay and anything else you can count. But none of them can fully explain “Brat Summer” — the cultural phenomenon surrounding British singer-songwriter Charli xcx’s latest studio album, “Brat,” that has stretched well past summer and into next year.
Released last June, “Brat” has spawned many popular songs — four of its tracks are up for Grammys, as is the album itself — but no true breakout single. Yet it has spread its distinctive shade of light green all across Western culture, inspiring a bazillion memes and outfits and catchphrases (“Bumpin’ that,” “So Julia” and, of course, whether something is or isn’t brat) and themed nightclub events like “Night of 1,000 Charlis.” Most surreal of all, after Charli tweeted “Kamala is brat” in July, it was even incorporated by Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ campaign, to the astonishment of its creator.
With that kind of cultural saturation, the songs are the gateway and the fuel for something much bigger. The “Brat” experience is an unusual combination of a loosely defined concept album and a virtuoso social-media marketing campaign, which could be anathema to some old-school music purists but is actually a huge expansion of the artist’s palette. For her skill in juggling all of these disciplines, Charli xcx is Variety’s Hitmaker of the Year.
