Charli xcx at Coachella: Brat is Dead, Long Live Brat
Truth be told, I had completely lost interest in this year's Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. With a lineup boasting Gen-X nostalgia legacy acts year after year (the slap in the face of filling Frank Ocean's slot with Blink-182 two years ago still stings), and contemporary bands offering nothing new apart from a couple of updated singles to their existing setlists, I almost considered fully skipping any engagement with the festival altogether. No act seemed capable of matching the sheer thrill and novelty of Danny Elfman's electrifying full-orchestra/industrial rock set from 2022.
This year, Charli xcx gave me hope. At 32, her career is one of constant reinvention and shows no sign of stopping. Even with younger pop artists like Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter dominating the musical landscape, Charli remained The It Girl of 2024. She knows it. According to her lyrics on brat and the subsequent remix album, she thinks about it all the time.
Charli's Coachella performance was as much of a post-Grammy victory lap as Kendrick Lamar's glorious "Not Like Us" reveal at the Superbowl Halftime Show. Her act served as a reminder of who she is at her core, a celebration the garage/club scene that made her, and a culmination of the season-turned-yearlong cultural phenomenon that was Brat Summer. As the songs rolled in, beginning with elements of "365" coalescing into "360" as she took the stage, it became clear how strong and cohesive of a vision brat had represented upon release. For Charli to bang out 11 songs from the album almost completely consecutively (with a brief "Unlock It" detour in the middle) shows an incredible confidence and pride in that vision almost a year on. The raucous, chaotic production, lyrics that veer between nakedly introspective reflections and proudly dumb fun choruses, and wild infectious energy all reinforce one another and produce a profound cumulative effect when performed live together like this.
The guest stars joining Charli onstage to sing their remix album verses broadened that iconic vision even wider. Troye Sivan delivered a welcome encore of the delicious back and forth energy from their collaborative Sweat Tour for "Talk Talk," wearing an all-too timely "Protect the Dolls" T-shirt. Lorde created an atmosphere of pure magical sisterhood for standout track "Girl, So Confusing," marching down the catwalk with her oft-compared musical counterpart (and according to Charli, hinting at an incoming "Lorde Summer"). And finally, despite a brief sound glitch at the beginning, Billie Eilish brought her steamy, sultry "Guess" verse to life in a loin-burning live debut. Even frequent collaborator A.G. Cook added to her musical omnipresence, weaving "Von Dutch," "Party 4 U" and "Mean Girls" into his set the day before.
As Charli's set neared its conclusion at an already white-hot fever pitch, bookending her marathon run with a reprise of "365," I had fully fallen back into the magic of inarguably the biggest album of last year. That's when it happened: a synth line I never expected to hear. "Track 10"! The experimental pop masterpiece that eventually became the watered-down, mainstream-oriented, Lizzo-featuring "Blame It On Your Love" was presented here in all its unwieldy, messy, borderline unmarketable, angular glory. Dancing alone and singing her head off with flashing black and white lights surrounding her, Charli xcx's entire musical career came into crystal clear focus for me in that moment: A woman who went from uploading her songs to Myspace as a teenager, to breaking through into mainstream pop on a global scale, to embracing more experimental underground collaborations, to releasing an album so monumental that a U.S. presidential nominee incorporated its iconography into her campaign.
Following a bold homerun stretch with "I Love It," the single that put her on the map thirteen years ago, cameras drifted to the enormous main stage digital backdrop, delivering a frank, bittersweet, triumphant message over an extended instrumental, which I'll present here in full: “Thank you so much Coachella. Does this mean that Brat Summer is finally over????? idk? Maybe? yes cuz duh it was already over like last year. wait…was it? NO??? i don’t know who i am if it’s over??? FUCKKKKKKKK wait…i remembered…i’m charli. and honestly i just want moment to last forever. Please don’t let it be over.” I have no idea what's next for Charli xcx's career. She may never release an album like brat ever again. But the moment was here, it was glorious, and we are all lucky to have been a part of it.
The "Miss Should Be Headliner" sash Charli wore at her afterparty is an understatement. Ancillary acts like Megan Thee Stallion, Zedd, and Yo Gabba Gabba! brought some much needed magical energy to the festival. And no single moment broke my brain quite like Bernie Sanders(!!!) making a surprise in-person appearance to introduce Clairo. Green Day and Post Malone were perfectly fine as headliners, but Lady Gaga was the only musician present to truly meet the moment on Friday. Debuting several songs off of her critically acclaimed Mayhem in an sprawling, orgiastic, operatic career-spanning showstopper complete with vintage act title cards, both Lady Gaga and Charli xcx demonstrate in spades why pop music continues to innovate and serve as a canvas for art worth getting excited about.